Forever Night
by Diggory Black
Summary: How did Garrett become the man he was in "Breaking Dawn"? This is my version of his story. Not Spike from Buffy/Angel related, but Spike and Angelus are my muse. Not a Kate/Garrett story until I finish.
1. Preface

PREFACE

**PREFACE**

They entered the clearing together, synchronized in every movement, so much like I'd seen them before. But there were so many of them. I'd been forewarned, of course, but even having dealt with them before, I was ill-prepared for their numbers.

As they fanned out in perfect formation, my thoughts moved to Katie. Curious that after all this time, after the journey of my life, I'd found something satisfying only now at the moment of my death.

And yes, I suddenly realized, this was to be the moment of my death. I'd longed for it in a way, for two and a quarter centuries, for twenty-two score and five years by the old reckoning, maybe longer if I was honest, if I included my human years, which my father certainly would have.

Well, today was as good a day as any to die.


	2. 1 PATRIOT 1778

1

**PATRIOT (1778)**

"Garrett! Garrett, wake up! Hurry now, we're to assemble!"

The image of Susan's face was out of my mind in an instant. I rolled quickly, too quickly, forgetting the arctic temperature. My blanket rarely kept it out, but in smallclothes it was unbearable. I grabbed the blanket and threw it over myself, ignoring William's pleas for the more pressing concern of finding boots for my bare, and freezing, feet.

"The Prussian wants us lined up, from what I can tell. Hard isn't it, when you're taking orders in a language you don't understand?" William mused, satisfied that I'd gotten the message. He rambled on as I struggled into the clothes I'd been wearing, with a few additions, for nearly two years. The cracks and holes in my boots I'd gotten used to, though the damned Prussian made that hard with all the drilling. I pulled on the navy blue coat, thoroughly used to the holes and patches, to the fact that whatever I put on would not stop the cold from creeping into every part of my being.

I did not like being cold. Perhaps, when this was over, I'd find a warmer place. Not in the South, they were too much like the English, with their plantations and their Africans, might as well be kings themselves. Maybe if the war came to them as it had come to Philadelphia, they would finally change their haughty airs. No, not the South, but not Philadelphia either. She would come with me, no matter what I did, no matter how I had changed.

I looked at William then. I wanted to think of him as young and untrained, but he had survived this winter, this winter that had taken so many others, this winter that was as horrible as all the battles I had seen, that made the victory of Trenton more glorious, that took some of the horrors of my memories of White Plains, and of Brandywine, and of Germantown, and placed them in perspective. Yes, sometimes there was something worse than the blood of a dead friend. Watching him die for what he believed? I could live with that. Watching him freeze to death? That was something I could no longer bear. This winter was nearly over, and I hated the cold. I patted the letter at my chest, and felt the cold leave me for a moment.

William was younger than I, but he had faced this cold too, and he had lived, as I had lived. He was no unseasoned lad, for he had witnessed the horrors of finding the dead, of scavenging their frozen bodies for clothing that might be useful, of listening to orders he did not understand, of repetition, all while surviving this monstrous winter that made me hate my home, hate what it had done to my friends, to my new family. He wore the lines on his face at the loss of a brother, and he had stayed, he had believed, he had survived.

"Let's get going then," I murmured so he could not hear my teeth chatter. It was not as bad anymore. The snow, or ice, for it was so hard packed and frozen over that it was more like ice now, was beginning to thaw a little. This was my home, and I knew that by the middle of April, the snow would be gone, the rain would come, that the land would become sodden and muddy and the skies grey and ominous, but that the cold would finally leave us. The wet would be miserable, but not lethal. We would complain, but only for something to do or say, for we would be happy that winter was over, and we were still here.

"You reckon we've got more marching and pacing to do? This stuff is so boring. When I signed up, I certainly didn't dream I'd be sitting in a tent freezing all night, only to wake up and have to walk around all day," William sighed as he left the tent, holding the flap for me, looking very little like a soldier with his blanket wrapped around him. No, I doubted any of us besides the officers, and of course Steuben, looked much like soldiers. I smirked at William's words as I left the tent, for they were the same words I would have said had I been sixteen and with the Continentals for only ten months, had I not seen New York, that wonderful and horrible city, fade away piece by piece to the damned Redcoats. I'd rather liked New York, yet hated it too. I would not be moving there when this was all over, but I understood the allure.

No, I was twenty-one and I had seen us lose at Harlem Heights, and at White Plains. I hated the Prussian, but if it helped, if I did not have to feel as hopeless as I had when we finally retreated to Morristown, if I could once again feel as I did in Trenton, when we had surprised those other Prussians, the less friendly ones - though to call Steuben friendly was laughable beyond measure – then it was worth it. It was why I had signed up, whether to live or to die.

We moved quickly into the line, heard the orders, first in German, then in French, and finally in English, our German brothers reacting first while the Americans waited for the order to filter down in translation, heard the curses at the soldiers who did something improper, and we moved through the drills, through the repetition. Washington was a good general, and he understood our limitations, but he had much on his mind, too much for him to properly train us. He had a campaign, a war, he had to keep men alive to fight again, to make sure we would not lose everything all at once. And he had politics. If there was one thing I had not expected to come from our revolt, it was the politics.

I tried to understand why I could not have a new jacket or a new pair of boots, but it was difficult. There was no money. The Congress could barely survive. No other country would accept the money they printed, for it was worthless. Our own people would not accept it. When we first arrived in Valley Forge, the army had tried to buy supplies, but we had nothing to offer in return, and Washington did not want to steal from the very people we were trying to free, though we did, from time to time, just to keep going.

We moved through the drills, which had become part of my being over the last month since Baron von Steuben had arrived, and I was left to my thoughts, responding automatically when a new order was called. When I broke from my reverie, on occasion, I was pleased to see how well we were regimented in so short a time. We would not be the same army in 1778 that we had been in the years past, with our few victories and our awful failures. And I smiled, a small smile, that maybe we could win this damned revolution after all.

We finally broke at midday to enjoy the meager rations we had, though the fires we surrounded were far more enjoyable than the spare bits of bread and coffee that had become my only source of sustenance. The coffee was strong and bitter, but it was hot and gave the illusion that the cold was not there, if only for a little while, and it broke me from darker musings and made me feel awake, much more so than William's shouts that morning.

"When we beat those English bastards, you can come back to New York with me and work for my father. When he knows what you've done for me, he'll be happy to give you a job. You'll bring her too." William's suggestion broke me from my thoughts as thoroughly as the coffee, and I turned and gave him a condescending smile. He saw the pain in my eyes that I tried to mask.

"Well, I know you don't want to go back to Philadelphia, the way you talk, or rather don't, about your family and your life before the war. And I owe you, obviously, and my father is a patriot too, and he'll be happy to have you. Well, he'll just be happy to not have any Englishmen around in New York anymore." William looked at me brightly. He had remained close since I had taken him under my wing at Germantown in October. God, October, only six months since Howe had stopped our last advance on Philadelphia, on my home, and routed us thoroughly. Had we not held them back at White Marsh, we might not have endured this unendurable winter, but we wouldn't be fighting anymore either. William had insisted on bunking up, and he was near me every day. He was about the only New Yorker that I could bear to be around, though all of them were better than the insufferable men from Boston, who seemed to think they were the only true patriots among us. I had an older brother in my old life, but William had become the younger brother I'd never had, and I felt far closer to him than I ever had to John.

William looked like me too, the sandy hair tied loosely beneath the tricolor, the long face that had experienced more years than his age would indicate, the tall, lean body that was stronger than it initially appeared, despite months of cold and starvation. But his face was bright, his eyes were bright, revealing the youth that I no longer had. On the rare occasions I saw myself, with my haggard beard and my blue eyes dulled by the years of death surrounding me, I no longer saw that youthful exuberance that my mother had seen. Had loved.

"I don't think so William," I responded, as jovially as I could. "I don't think, when this is over, that I'll be ready to work on a dock, to lead so normal a life. How can I? The spirit of this war has infected everything in me. This has all been far too much fun to go back to the old life!" I finished with a grin on my face. I could see in his eyes that he did not believe me, but I knew it was right, that I had made my decisions and that I was a changed man, a man who no longer could live as he had before, that Susan would meet a different man when I returned to Philadelphia to ask her to join me

We returned to training in the afternoon, the sunlight bouncing off the ice, and it was a relief to once again return to the fires and the friendship of my brothers for supper. We talked into the night as the wind blew colder air, warming ourselves and remembering why we were here, why what we were doing was so important. We laughed at new jokes about the tyrant George that the soldiers had come up with during the tedious repetitions of the day, cursed the Redcoats and their Indian companions, spoke warily of our month old alliance with the French. We did not know what to make of that. By all accounts, their Louis was worse than our George, but they wanted to help, and we needed the assistance.

William and I retired to our tent early, knowing the coming day would be as long as this one. He looked at me as we entered. "I know you don't think you can fit in the new world we're making," he said, "but you're a good man, Garrett, and a good friend. When you aren't all dour over your family and the cold, you're easy to be around. I wish you would consider what I'm asking. You could make a life for yourself. And I never would have survived without you." The sincerity of William's statement stopped me, and I looked him in the eye.

"Mine is a life of solitude I think," I responded after a moment's hesitation. "I have found this cause, and it's all I know now. I think, for me, that freedom is not just an idea for America. It is what I need in my own life as well. Perhaps Kentucky and the west for me. There are plenty of Indians left to fight when this is over. Fighting Indians sounds like fun." I smiled again, and William understood. I would always be looking for the next adventure. I did not know if anyone else would understand, but I had been so selfish in many ways that I wasn't concerned.

I stripped quickly down to my filthy smallclothes and wrapped myself in the blanket, shivering hard. After a few minutes, I heard William moving through the tent flap. Business to take care of, I supposed, as I curled up and attempted to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, William was gone. No one had seen him. He had simply vanished. The officers sent a unit to retrieve the deserter, and I hoped they would not find him and send him to the firing squad, but wished to see my friend. When they returned empty-handed, the feeling was bittersweet.

I would be sure to tell his father, to go back to New York one last time, when the war was over. Perhaps William would be there. Unlike me, he longed to return to his family…


	3. 2 REVOLT 1776

1

**REVOLT (1776)**

"GARRETT WILCOX SMITH! I will hear no more of this nonsense!" my mother screamed at me, though I paid her no mind. I was too busy deciding what I would be able to bring with me when I joined the Continental Army to be concerned over my mother's long expected fury.

"You cannot possibly believe in this insanity!" my mother continued, unperturbed by my lack of reaction. "These…patriots," she said the word in a low voice, as if she were saying something unmentionable and horrible "will only make everything worse than it already is!" She hissed the last with venom, though I knew not whether it was because of the word or my own volition to join them that brought about her negative reaction. My family certainly was not patriotic, but they had no love for the damned English either.

I moved through my room, ignoring her as I grabbed what clothes I would need, whatever I could fit in the small rucksack that would be life until I died or the war was won. Two sets of smallclothes, britches and shirts and socks, the only things I could think of. I held nothing dear in terms of worldly possessions. I did not have a favorite book, though I was one of the few sons of the merchant class that could read, and I certainly had no precious items of worth. The means of my family were not meager, but they were not so great that I had any tokens of wealth. I grabbed the letter, my letter, off the table and stuffed it in the pocket of my jacket, keeping it close to my heart. That was the only possession I prized.

"James! James! You must talk some sense into Garrett! We cannot allow this!" my mother shouted as she followed me from the small room towards the common area, from the room John and I had shared until he had gone to work in New York for that clever man Hamilton, the genius businessman, the fellow patriot who now joined with George Washington, who was now a ranking officer in the Continental Army. I'd not thought much of the man when I'd traveled to New York to see John, but if he was willing to risk it all for the cause, then certainly I could.

I turned this emotion on my mother. "I work at the docks! I pick up cargo and move it from one place to the other! What do you expect mother! That I'm satisfied! That all I want is to be my father!" I regretted my words immediately when my father entered from the kitchen, filling the small common room.

"Lydia, allow me a moment with Garrett please," he said in a calm tone that belied his anger. I knew that, though he would not show it, my father was far angrier than my mother. He had gained control of the dock we now worked through dedication and years of sacrifice, and John's impatience with the family business had greatly dismayed him. He had relied on me to continue when he no longer could, and my decision pained him greatly. Another lost son.

He waited for a moment, until my mother was out of the room, though she could certainly hear us in anywhere in the small brownstone home. John and I had never been able to keep secrets as boys in this house, much less the far smaller house before, and my father would not keep this conversation a secret from my mother either.

"You wish to leave. To fight," he said simply.

"I do. I believe in this cause. I have read the declaration of the Congress. This is the right thing. I believe in it. I have seen the hardship the English have placed on you. I know you struggle with their tariffs and their restrictions, that it makes business hard. And your hardship is nothing compared to what they do to others. Compared to what they've done in Boston." I grew surer of myself as the words flowed from me. "They are wrong. We are right. No longer should we follow their laws, their rules, without having our voice heard. No longer should we live by the whim of a tyrant king who will not listen. This is right. I am right. I am sure of it," I finished with a great deal of bravado, the emotions I had been feeling finally put into words.

"Then you will not return," my father said simply, but the words were harsh to my ears. "Your brother is coming home. He has rejected his fool employer, and he wishes to redeem himself. Make this decision, and there is no place for you here. I offered you a life, but if you reject it now, then you reject it forever. Your brother will take your place, and the only life for you here will be working for him. You are no longer in line for the business"

My father's words were cold and true. His eyes betrayed nothing. I would not return to run his dock, to take in commissions. If I left now, I would return to the very life I was running from, only with no hope of improving it. I was either a patriot now and a dockhand after, or I was the heir to the dock. There was no alternative in my father's eyes, for what else could there be?

For the first time since I'd read the declaration, I was worried and confused. My future had been clear. Get rid of the British. Make more money than my father had with them gone. Buy a home that Susan would be proud to live in. Raise a family with her, and leave them with more than my father had left me. What was more important? Susan and that family I imagined, or doing what I knew was right, for her, for my father and mother and brother, for everyone I knew. My father had made this much harder than I'd ever imagined.

"But I'm doing the right thing," I whispered. I could do no more than whisper in that moment, for my mind was undecided.

"Are you?" my father answered my whisper in a stronger voice than I was capable of. "I know of your loved one. I know she approves of your decision. But will she live the life you choose? Will she accept being less than she was before? You think I am unaware, but I work with you every day, hear what you tell the other hands about Susan. You love her very deeply, from what I gather. Will she really accept a dockhand and the life you offer her when you come back? Will she still be there when you come back? Or will she have moved on to someone else? She is already eighteen, and her father is ready for her marriage to better men than you are now. Do you really think that, with little prospect, she will feel the same for you? That you will be enough for her as a dockhand and former patriot, no matter what this war brings?"

His words brought anger more than any other emotion. Susan believed in me. She knew how I felt about the cause. She would never abandon me. I knew this to be true. It had to be. She had accompanied me to Paine's speech, had been with me on July the fourth when the declaration had been announce, had cheered with me. She would understand. She had to understand.

"Go to her," my father suggested. "Ask her if she is willing to give up everything you are. To live a life she never has. She has always been provided for. What will she say of you now?"

I dropped my rucksack and went out the door without another word, for it was not fair to Sue to do anything without her approval. I sprinted out of our home on Vine Street and turned right at the corner of Market, towards the river we had taken the ferry across in happier times. I arrived at her home in moments, but waited cautiously until her father had left for the bank before I knocked on the door. Her mother greeted me coldly, but she allowed me to stand at the door, though no further, until Sue arrived. She was radiant, her blond hair framing her face in yet another new way, always taking me by surprise with her unimaginable brilliance. She waited for me to start, seeing the breathless look on my face.

"My father has disinherited me should I go off and fight. I will be nothing but me when I return. Will you still take me?" I was utterly breathless as I looked in her eyes, searching for any indecision. It was there, mirrored in her mother's eyes. Her mother hated me passionately.

"I…don't know what to say," Susan stammered.

"Say you will wait for me, and that you don't care what life we lead as long as we're together," I implored, not knowing what else to do. Her eyes were hesitant.

"You must not do this!" she begged, tears running down her cheeks, and I was suddenly more hesitant than before.

"But your letter, everything that you wrote?" I could not bear her tears.

She looked in my eyes, her green against my blue. I saw her anguish. "I will wait as long as I can. But you must come back. You cannot make me wait for years. My parents will not allow it, and I cannot stop them. If you wish to be in this war, then it must end soon or I will be gone," the last she said with finality. It was not what I wanted to hear, but it was something. Could I leave this cause for her? I did not know, but the hope that she would still be there would be enough to help me live through it. I knew that my stubborn nature, my righteous nature, was enough for me to fight. I hoped I could allow another part of my mind to recognize the need to survive, to come back and be with her.

I realized then what I had to do. I had to fight. There was no other choice in me. I could not betray my freedom or the freedom of those I loved. Freedom was not just my right, but Sue's right, and my father's right, and my mother's right, and my brother's right, and the right of every Philadelphian, of every Pennsylvanian, of every American. If I survived, I would live with the consequences. But if she was with me, I could survive. I would come back to her. I would not be Susan's love if I stayed, if I did not fight. I would not be the man she loved.

"I have to go," I whispered, and saw the astonishment on her face, and then more tears, many more, more than I could possibly believe. "I would not be the man you love if I did not do this, if I did not believe what I believe about freedom and the future. Would you be able to love me if I was a coward?" I finally asked.

"Yes," she breathed, but I did not believe her. I pulled her letter from my jacket.

"I will keep this with me, and I will give it to you someday soon, so that you know how much I love you. For I love you more than anything, and I only leave because you and everyone I know are more important than my own life."

"No," she whispered.

I kissed her passionately, ignoring her mother, then tucked the letter to my breast, and returned to my home, making sure I did not look back, for I would never go forward if I did.

My father looked at me gravely as I took my rucksack. He said nothing while my mother wailed. I looked at him, stared into his brown eyes. I had all my mother's features. I was my mother's son before, in my brightness, but now I was no one's son. He shook his head once, telling me all I needed to know. I walked out the door, then turned back, for my mother's sake.

"I love you both. It is for that love that I leave. We can no longer live together in the world the way it is. When I change that, when we change that, when the world is the way it should be, then you may understand. We will be free, because otherwise I don't want to live in this world." My mother sobbed, but my father said nothing.

I glanced east down Market Street towards the Delaware, hoping I might catch a glimpse of Sue that I did not deserve. I was not surprised when I did not see her. Then I walked west until I reached City Hall and the gathering crowd of volunteers


	4. 3 YORKTOWN 1781

3

**YORKTOWN (1781)**

We were so close I could almost taste the victory. Cornwallis had failed miserably, had stranded the British forces. He would not escape. It was only a matter of time. And for me, finally, something to do.

We had sat outside New York for so long, I barely remembered what it was like to fight a war anymore. Washington was so stubborn, believed so much in the importance of New York, and all the while the real war was happening in the South, in the Carolinas and on the oceans, in places I would never see called the West Indies, which I only knew of because I had unloaded so many crates of spices and other products in my old life on the docks, and because my commander, that admirable chap Hamilton, came from there, and listened fondly to stories of French successes.

Hamilton had not remembered me from the old life, though I'd shook his hand in New York when I had gone there with John so many years ago, when he was only a clerk with revolutionary ideals, but he knew me now. Those that had survived in Washington's army from the beginning, who had seen everything, had lived through Valley Forge, were highly regarded in the army. My birth and the status of my family would not allow me so high a position as Hamilton's, I had no formal military training, but I was a lieutenant now, an officer, and though we were not friends, I was under his command, in his councils, had even met Washington and Rochambeau and Greene and Lafayette in my position under direct command of Washington's Chief of Staff before, and now under his field command of our three battalions of light infantry.

I rather liked the man. He was so unlike me. For him, this war was about the future, about what we could create, his place in it should he find glory here at Yorktown. He had so many ideas about government and finance and the country we would make, I didn't know how he was able to concentrate on the task at hand, on winning this war first. I had no such problems. I knew this was it for me. I would have seen her in the crowd…I shuddered away from the memory, of our triumphant march through Philadelphia from New York to help capture Cornwallis' force. We had been there for two days, and Susan had not come. She had not been among the crowd as we marched down Market and Broad, for I knew I would have seen her had she been there, knew it in my heart. I did not know what would happen to me after this battle. But I would not create some brave new world with Alexander Hamilton. I would look for Susan one last time, and when my suspicions were confirmed, I would disappear.

I didn't really care where I went anymore, though I still found the idea of going west and killing savages until my luck finally changed appealing. For it had to eventually, and I would finally die, as I should have died at Germantown when I had saved William, and in the frozen hell of Valley Forge. Another shudder went through me when I thought of William, and hoped against hope that he would be there, happy, when New York was finally free of the Redcoats. Another trip I had to make. Perhaps I had more of a future than I thought.

Our objective now was redoubt ten. I felt that there should be a better name for it, but I supposed it was just one portion of our siege of Yorktown. We had fired artillery on the British for so long that the sounds of cannonballs against sand and stone, only four hundred yards away now, were as normal as the murmur of voices on Market Street as I walked to the docks for work in my old life. Cornwallis was sheltered now in the fort, having fled his old headquarters in the town. I very much wanted to meet Cornwallis, to see the coward for myself. The Southern militias who had joined us did not paint a complementary picture of the man. His actions as a general had been foolish and unforgivable, moving from the Carolinas to Virginia to assist the traitor Arnold, and he had trapped his forces with little hope of escape, for Clinton would never give up New York to give him aid. Clinton was as obsessed with New York as Washington.

I looked around at the other men in my company, men I did not know. After William had left, I was careful not to get close. They were my brothers still, but I did not want to be attached. My losses had been too heavy.

"Lieutenant!" a face I did not know approached me and saluted. I returned the salute curtly. "Colonel Hamilton requests the presence of all officers for assembly and preparation for battle." The boy looked at me expectantly, but I merely turned away from him and began dressing, smiling at the boots that no longer had holes and the blue jacket that was no longer made up of patches. There were certainly benefits to being an officer. I picked up my musket, fitted my bayonet, and left my tent, feeling a sense of well being, a sense I'd had often since we'd arrived in Yorktown, but which had escaped me for years beforehand.

I moved quickly down to the siege line, towards our side of redoubt ten. We had been told that were we successful, and the French successful in taking redoubt nine, that Cornwallis would be forced to surrender, his position untenable. I liked the idea of finally being a part of something important after so many years of hearing about success and failure in other places. I did not worry about enemy fire, for the British only fired their artillery at night now. I moved behind the siege line, glancing once at the British bulwark that was redoubt ten, wooden spikes and dirt and brick with unseen Redcoats behind it, at the place where I would soon stand, which might force this war, this revolution to a close.

I saw my captain, Winters, and moved in front of him, between him and the assembling soldiers, saw Colonel Hamilton, further down the line, and waited for the order to move forward. My company filled out behind me, lined up elegantly, and I was reminded of the months of training under Steuben. In this moment I once gain marveled at the fighting force the Continentals had become, so little like the army I had joined in New York.

"Company! Attention!" Winters' voice startled me, and I moved immediately to stand ready. The October sun of Virginia was hotter than that of Philadelphia, and I was already sweating slightly, felt a drop trickle from beneath my tricolor and down my cheek, felt the wetness in the long hair and throughout my body as I prepared my self for one last battle, to see the end of the war that had cost me everything, that I believed in so completely, that I should have given my life for.

"Present arms!" I moved the musket against my shoulder, felt it's weight, looked briefly at the musket balls and powder at my waist, mused quietly about how long it would take for me to reload, prepared myself to walk into enemy fire. All around me, my brothers presented arms, three battalions, ready to die, to end this.

There would be no speeches, though I felt there should be, I rather liked speeches. There would be more blood, more death, and, perhaps, triumph. I had seen little of the blood and death over the last years, but I tried to fix it in my mind, to remember Germantown and Trenton, to steel myself against the coming violence.

"Company! Move out!" And we stepped forward, climbed over the siege lines, still too far for musket fire, and into formation, and began marching in lock step toward the redoubt.

I wanted to see the Redcoats, thought I might now that we were over the siege line, but they remained hidden behind the redoubt. We marched closer, ever closer, four hundred yards becoming three hundred, three hundred becoming two hundred, the artillery battering the redoubt in front of us, and then they were firing, the musket balls flying past us, men falling, I knew though I did not see.

"Company! Halt!" We stopped together. "Ready!" I pulled the musket up. "Aim!" I looked carefully down the barrel. "Fire!" The musket jerked against me, the ball away, and I moved quickly to reload, not looking at the place where I'd fired, replacing the cartridge and refilling the powder.

We fired again, and then came the command I'd waited for: "Charge!" And we were closing the gap quickly now covering the last hundred yards in a few heart beats, firing into the redoubt, and I saw brothers falling beside me, and in front of me. I was at the redoubt now, saw flashes of red, moved past fallen brothers. I fired one last time, and I saw the Redcoat fall, and then I had my saber in my right hand and the musket in my left, now a club instead of a gun, and I was climbing past the wooden spikes, over the dirt mound buffeted by brick, over the other side, and I saw far more red.

I was outnumbered now, felt my saber enter the Redcoat in front of me, saw the look of shock on his face. I swung the musket to my left, hoping the bayonet would keep the other soldier at bay, saw a navy blue coat move past me, pulled my saber from the body, and then pain, excruciating pain, my shoulder exploding, and my body no longer responded: the shock was too great, and I dropped the saber and fell.

I rolled over, feeling the searing pain in my shoulder, wishing the arm would simply not exist. I looked up, but there was only more red, and I saw the face of the English bastard, and I was trying to move again, my left arm the only one I could move, to get my musket in front of me, and then more pain, but less, as he smashed my face with the butt of his musket, and then still more agony when I felt the bayonet in my gut.

And he was gone, and I stared up at the sun, higher now than it had been, but the sweat no longer came, or at least I did not feel it. The pain in my shoulder was unbearable, as though it had somehow exploded but was still there. The pain of my head dazed me, but not enough. As I struggled for awareness, I knew only one thing. It was the pain in my gut that would kill me.

I did not know how long I lay there, staring at the sun, the pain too great for me to notice the sting in my eyes, and then someone was there, but I did not know who. The voice said, quietly "It's Lieutenant Smith. He's still alive," telling me what I already knew, because this agony was not the agony of hell, was not the fire I would soon feel, for I had abandoned my love, and that was the place for me.

Was today a good day to die? I supposed any day was good enough for me. I had been trying to die for too long now, and my luck had finally run out.

I felt myself moving, but I could not focus. Hands gripped my shoulders and feet, and I was vaguely aware of being carried, though I could only scream in agony when my right shoulder was touched, and then my right arm was left alone, to dangle next to me lifelessly, foreshadowing the death of the rest of me.

I opened my eyes again, saw the wood and stone, heard screams around me. Time had passed. I tried to turn my head, to see where I was, but all I knew was pain.

A voice was near me, and I concentrated hard. "I would remove the arm, but there is no point. The wound in his intestines is fatal." I was in the infirmary then. This was the voice of a doctor, calm, knowing. He knew what I had already guessed, had seen it before. There was nothing left for me.

"I will give him something for the pain."

If he did, I did not feel it. I put Susan to the front of my mind, and concentrated only on her. I saw her beautiful face, saw her blond hair cascading down her shoulders, smelled the sweet scent when the wind moved it. Yes, this was a good way to die.

I know not how long I was lost in her image when I heard another voice, familiar yet wholly different. "I owe him, Mary," the voice said quietly. It was not a voice I knew, but very like it.

I heard another voice, a woman's voice, but it was not the voice of Susan, not the voice I expected now, at the time of my death. "You don't know how difficult this is. Why should I change this man, with the sweet smell all around us?" She was disapproving.

"Change him, and then we can have as much fun as we want. No one is here. We are among the dying. Change him and then we can feed." The slightly familiar voice was pleading.

"Very well," the woman said, and I felt a kiss at my neck, away from the blood on my shoulder. The kiss was suddenly a burn, and my eyes shot open. I saw a woman I did not recognize, a woman too beautiful for words, pale and white with long brown hair, her face seemingly made of stone. An angel? No, I was bound for hell. My heart was beating quickly now, and the fire at my neck was greater than the pain in my shoulder and my gut, but I concentrated on the other face for just one moment, before the fire took me. Was this face familiar?

"I told you I owed you," the familiar voice said. "Now you owe me. Hello Garrett." And I saw what was familiar in the face, that it looked like my old friend William.

And then I was screaming.


	5. 4 UNATTAINABLE 1775

4

**UNATTAINABLE (1775-1776)**

The crate hit me with full force as it swung from the ship, and I was in the filthy water.

"Whoa, Garrett! Keep an eye out!" My father's voice reached me as I spluttered and spit the stinking water of the Delaware out of my mouth and pushed my long hair, which had come undone, away from where it had matted itself in front of my eyes. There was very little concern in my father's voice as he leaned over the dock to look at me, and his expression was one of resignation.

The crate still swung crazily above me, battering the crane that had levered it from the ship, and I heard the voices of crew members as they tried to gain control of it, and also the grating of the crane against its swivel, wood against iron. I moved towards the shore awkwardly, keeping my head above water, for the dock was too high and my swimming skills left much to be desired.

I clambered up the ladder to the street, and found myself standing on the loop of Chestnut and Market, staring at City Hall, sopping wet to the core of my being. Pedestrians stared at me as I shook out my hair, and a wealthy family looked in disgust, and I smiled a bemused smile back at them. They were the Kelly's, and I recognized their father, if only because of his wealth. I caught a flash of blond, but his daughter quickly looked away from me. I could only imagine what she saw, a lanky, sandy haired boy, dripping water and mud. She might even smell the filth of the Delaware. I saw her face for only a second, but it was so beautiful it nearly broke my heart.

I moved toward them, but Mr. Kelly ushered his family away from the docks and toward their home on Market, a fine home in the midst of the wealth of Philadelphia, and a carriage suddenly blocked my way, the stink of horses almost as bad as the stink of the river. I heard my father calling me, and turned away toward the dock, though I could not get the angelic face of the Kelly girl to leave my mind.

My father noticed the look on my face at once, though I did not know I was wearing it. "What are you so happy about?" he asked as we walked back towards the dock. "You are the only man I know who could somehow be happy to take a blow to the chest and reek of this filthy river." My father shook his head, waiting for my answer. I caught him off guard.

"What do you know of the Kelly family?" I asked, and I could feel my smile brighten.

My father looked unhappy. "They are very wealthy. Much of the freight that we move here goes through them to the countryside." He had not answered my question

"What of the daughters?" I asked, and he immediately looked at me with reproach.

"One is married, she lives near Westchester. The older girl, the brunette, is engaged to one of the Stewarts," he said, and I saw the rebuke in his eyes, saw my own excitement. "The younger, the blonde, is seventeen and not yet betrothed. Her name is Susan." When he saw my face light up, he continued quickly. "She is of high standing, and her father is looking for a suitable match among Philadelphia society."

The look my father gave me was as good as a reprimand, and he sought to divert my attention. "If you want to inherit this dock, you ought to move quickly. I really don't care if you're wet," he chided as we returned to the ship that had soaked me. I moved immediately back to work, though my thoughts were always elsewhere. Susan. Susan Kelly. She would know me, no matter what my status. I would not give her a choice.

I removed myself from my small room that night, carrying my boots until I was through the common area and out the door, sliding them on over my socks only when I was around the corner, looking around me, south down Fourth Street, towards Market and my objective. I did not know what window was hers, but I felt confident I would find it. This somehow felt right, as though everything was falling into place. I moved over the cobblestones confidently, and I was accompanied only by streetwalkers and the occasional pedestrian, but their business only led them to hide their faces. I was in front of her house in little time, and up the tree in front in far less.

I knocked on a window, then again when there was no response. A light came on, and I pulled back to the tree, nearly falling as I did so. The face in the window was not what I wanted, the pretty brunette looking back at me not the person I sought. Still, she lifted the sash and shot me an angry look. But I saw the blonde hair behind her, and knew I had found the right place.

"What the devil are you doing? Fool boy, you're going to kill yourself!" the brunette admonished me, but I had no eyes for her.

"May I speak to Susan?" I pleaded, my voice strained as I hung from the branch of the walnut, clutching it against my body so I would not fall. I thought the brunette would slam down the sash, but she merely nodded and turned away, a resigned look on her face.

And then Susan was there, and I nearly let go of the tree and fell, so much did I wish to kiss her. She was ever so much more beautiful now that I could see her face fully, could contemplate her face completely.

"Yes?" she asked warily, but I felt there was something more, that there might be a hint of intrigue in her voice. I jumped on that hope, and proceeded, despite my embarrassment.

"Susan Kelly, I am Garrett Smith, and we are meant to be together," I proclaimed, fully confident that she would immediately see everything as I did.

"Oh go away!" she muttered, and slammed the sash shut. And then stared at my face as I plummeted into their yard, for I had forgotten to hold to the limb when I heard her dulcet voice.

My body ached from the fall, but I'd seen concern in her face. That was all I needed. I saw the light from the front door when I rolled over, saw her father with a musket in his hand, but I also saw her peering out the door behind him. I looked her straight in the eye, grinned as widely as I could, then leapt over the fence before her father could react, sprinting around the corner to Fourth Street before the pain of the fall made me slump on the vestibule of a home I did not know.

She was concerned. That was more than enough. I trudged home with a happy look that belied my injured body.

And I was there, every night. At first her sister, Maryanne, would answer and try to keep Susan away, but she saw my eyes, saw Susan's eyes, and soon returned to bed. We spoke of everything in the moonlight and the street light, of how I hated my work and how I wanted so much more, of how she longed to leave Philadelphia and her parents. The sense of adventure, in what we were doing and what we wanted to do, excited us. Adventure was our passion. We spoke of the coming war, of what was happening in the north. That led to my first overture, knocking on their door the next day, for Thomas Paine was speaking at the Pennsylvania State House.

Her mother looked at me with reproach, but I ignored her when I saw Susan's bright, beautiful green eyes peak out behind her mother, and then her hand was in mine, and we were racing up Market, and I knew what happiness was. The feel of her hand in my hand was almost too much to bear, and I looked down at her heart shaped face, saw her eyes through her blonde curls, and I was hopelessly, desperately, in love.

Her face moved away from mine, and we listened to Paine, and I was immersed in another love. Revolution. Freedom. Liberty. I looked at Susan again as we read his pamphlet on a bench in the park. This world, the world we lived in, was not the world for Susan. She belonged in a perfect world. The world that Paine promised was a world where we could, should, be together. And I was needed to create this world. This world where Susan and I would be right, for what world could I live in without the two of us being right?

I turned to her then, and kissed her for the first time. I had never in my life felt better, felt more right, than this moment. I was with my love, and I was offered the opportunity to change the world so that my love for her would be right. Everything was perfect.

The look she returned when we ended our embrace was nor so hopeful. "You mean to join this cause, don't you?" she asked, and for the first time I saw pain. I hated it immediately.

"We can change everything!" I exclaimed, trying to change her mood. "We can change everything that we know, everything that we accept, everything that your family accepts!" Her face did not change.

"You would leave me?" she asked.

"Never," I answered, and kissed her again.

But the war grew, and I could no longer ignore it, and neither could she. We grew closer in love, but farther apart in everything else. Everyday I woke and went to the docks, and everyday I wished I was somewhere else. Susan was enough to fill my heart, but she was not enough to fill my mind. Everyday that I did not join, I felt more a coward, and less worthy of being with her.

It was July now, and I knew what had happened at the state house, had seen the men of the Continental Congress come in and out for over a month. I read the words they had written and signed, and they were beautiful words, nearly as beautiful as my Susan's. Her letter was next to the declaration in my hands, the letter she had stuffed into my hands after we had embraced, when the Congress had declared the independence of the colonies on the third, when everyone else outside the State House had rejoiced. I was crying, though I did not know it. What I did know was that I should talk to her, but I could not see her, see my face reflected in her eyes, could not see the expression on her face. I opened the letter she had given me, when still unsure of my decision:

Dearest Garrett,

I love you more than you can possibly know. There is change in the air that neither of us can understand . We met in a world that changes constantly still. I see the anguish in your eyes when we hear the speeches, when you read the newspaper. I am your love, but you have another love.

Where can we fit in this world, when your love for me and your love for freedom tears you apart? I know not. I hope that you choose your love for me, but always you will be in my heart, no matter where your heart takes you.

You are the love of my life, but your life knows two loves. I can only hope that they do not destroy each other, and that my Garrett will come back to me.

I Love You,

Susan

I needed to see my parents. I did not know if I could see Susan.


	6. INTERLUDE 1

INTERLUDE 1

**INTERLUDE 1**

"The Redcoats are coming, the Redcoats are coming!" I whispered, but I knew everyone around me could hear.

Bella, the newborn, glanced at me curiously. We had no time for polite conversation, and she turned back to her Edward before I could ever respond.

I glanced forward at Katie, but no longer was she Katie. She was my Katie. I moved forward slightly, until she was near me. My Katie. Yes, for the first time in a long time I was in the right place.

I loved her desperately, of a sudden. I'd known I loved her before, but now I could not imagine my existence without her.

Bella looked at me again, but I was next to my Katie, and nothing else mattered.


	7. 5 OPEN FLAME 1781

5

**OPEN FLAME (1781)**

"KILL ME!"

How often had I implored this? Why would no one respond? I was aware, occasionally, of the presence of others in the room, and I knew I had begged to be killed too many times to count. I was able to comprehend this much through the pain. Yes, I knew they had heard me, but they ignored my pleas, though surely they must have known that I meant them.

Were I capable of laughter, I would have laughed at my perception of the pain in my shoulder before the fire had begun to burn my body, before I had been thrown into the deepest pits of hell. I was already dead, and I was in hell. That was the only explanation. The presences I was aware of were simply fiends from the dark pits of damnation, enjoying my eternal misery.

Strangely, the flames had removed the explosion in my shoulder, and the dull pain in my gut, but that was hard to process when it meant so little in comparison. I could no longer trust any of my senses, the pain was so great. I thought there was someone near me, but I could not be sure. I thought the pain from my wounds was gone, but I could not be sure. I thought I saw a wooden roof above me, when I was capable of opening my eyes, but I could not be sure. The open flame igniting my body made any other perception entirely impossible to trust.

Once again, my mind worked to refocus, to place Susan's image in front of it. Would the Devil allow me to think of Susan in hell? Would that not be the worst torment he could inflict, to take her away from me? Perhaps I was simply burning alive, and my mind was prolonging my final moment, extending it for what seemed an eternity. Perhaps someone had thought me dead and chosen to burn my body rather than bury it, and my last thoughts were occurring, only every second had become a day, a week, a year.

I had screamed her name nearly as often as I had implored for death, I knew that, it was one of the only things I was capable of remembering. I doubted my senses, had no idea if I was dead or alive, but my mind would not release the image of Susan, no matter what. I could concentrate on the voices I occasionally heard, I could empty my mind and feel the burning completely, which always led to more requests for death, or I could fix my mind on Susan and stop myself from screaming. My body, of course, I could not control, and I knew not what my agony looked like on the outside, but I could concentrate on that small portion of my mind, and feel very faintly the love of my now burning heart.

Her hair, blond, slightly curled, waving in the sunlight, a slight breeze shifting it, smelling of scented oils. Her freckles, small across her nose and her cheeks, transparent but in the midday sun. Her skin, faintly tanned, not white but not cream, so very exemplary of the perfect tone of skin. Her dimples, when she smiled, elevating the expressions, taking it to perfection. Her lips, full and warm, opening slightly as we kissed, allowing her breath and my breath to become one breath, her lovely fragrance overcoming the worst parts of my salty, sweat drenched, masculine scent, making me feel, for a very small moment, that she could make me be someone who deserves her.

"How long?" a voice startled me from my reverie, a voice laced with impatience, a voice subtly familiar. Was I remembering the other voices I had heard while I was burning? The voice shocked me from that small corner of my mind and heart that could comprehend happiness, and the flames burned anew.

"It took three days for you. It should be any moment now." Another voice, lilting, female, replied. If I listened to the voices, the fire was not as great, if I placed all my concentration on that sound and nothing else.

"They smell too good. If he doesn't change soon, I won't be able to help myself from having a taste," the familiar voice, once again.

"I still do not know if this was necessary," the female said quietly. "Perhaps we should allow him to hunt properly. I do not believe there is any protocol on the transformation, but it was how I began, and how I let you begin."

"Nonsense. Garrett was my friend and he helped me to attain this immortal life. He shall have any convenience I can provide. And I believe he will be much like me. Freedom was what we both sought in life, and freedom is what I returned for the aid that was given, a freedom far beyond his petty imaginings before. He will have none of the remorse that plagues you unnecessarily, Mary."

"I do not know this man, but I know little of this transformation and how it effects us. I know who I was before, and who I became after. I have guessed some of who you were before, over these past years, and yet you seem very different from your human self. I cannot tell you what Garrett will be like." The lilting female voice was very lovely, as was the familiar voice.

They seemed to believe that I would be dead soon, from what I could guess of their conversation. Perhaps they were angels? Was I in purgatory, and they were discussing my entrance to heaven? No, that did not make sense. Something about three days, about it being over. I could not wrap my head around that. Surely they did not mean I had burned for three days? I was either burning in the eternal fires of hell, or stretching the moment of death, for no other explanation could explain the pain I had experienced, and was experiencing.

"He will be like me. I know it. I feel it," the familiar voice again, confident.

"I hope that will make you happy," the female, Mary, replied, very quietly, so quietly that I was convinced she whispered into my ear. "I hope you have the companion you so crave."

The voices stopped, and I returned to hellfire and damnation, and to Susan, for another eternity.

The change was very subtle at first, and had I been able to concentrate on Susan rather than losing my battle with the fire once again, I may not have noticed. It was my heart. It was as if my heart had become so strong, it was trying to burst from my chest. I had never heard my heartbeat before, only felt it, but I knew now that I was hearing it. Was this good?

The answer was yes when I felt the burning leave my fingers and toes, and yet no as the burning everywhere else became stronger. Was that possible? Reason screamed that it was not, but the pain begged to disagree. The flames were gone now through my lower legs, and my arms, but they burned hotter than ever in the rest of my body, and hottest of all in my rapidly thudding heart.

"It is time," Mary said, and I heard her voice with far greater clarity.

"Excellent!" the male proclaimed joyously.

I wanted to laugh, again, but obviously I could do no more than continue to scream. Excellence was no longer a part of my vocabulary when I described anything about myself.

My mind seemed to…open, as the pain raced quickly toward my heart, which ran faster than any horse I had ever seen, faster than a musket ball or a shot from a cannon, too fast to comprehend. My memories were smaller, they occupied even less space in my mind, and they dimmed slightly. "No!" my mind screamed, and my ears recognized that I had screamed the word aloud as well. I fixed Susan's face in front of me, desperately afraid to lose it, pushed her image into as many gaps in my expanding mind as I could, pushed out all the sounds I was hearing – and I heard so many! – and thought only of her.

The agony was fully concentrated on my heart in that instant, and Susan's face was thrust away. My new mind was more worthless than the old, because it only offered more ways to contemplate the horrors of the fire.

I was aware now of the rest of my body, lurching and coiling, my hands wrenching my chest, tearing at fabric. I realized that I was trying to tear out my own heart, and I understood the urge. The slamming thuds of my heart ripped through my body, slowing, but with greater physical pain each time.

Slowing, slowing, until the beats were spaced into centuries, until, finally, my heart gave me what I so desperately craved, and killed me.

The burning was still great, but not as much as before, and as I was aware that my heart no longer beat, I was also aware that my throat was scorching, that the eternal flame could not be put out. The vast expanse of my mind was aware of this, but not consumed. I thought about my body, rigid and unmoving, gone from warm to white hot but now strangely cold. It was not the cold of Valley Forge, but it was not warm either.

The memory of the winter, so long ago, so many lifetimes, startled my new mind, and I flicked through my other memories as fast as I could, constantly returning to the things that mattered most to me, to Susan and to freedom, and I was seeing everything that had come before as if from a distance, and only those two that were most important could fill even a small part of me.

I listened around me then, when I had control of this new mind, and when I was finally able to beat back the scorching in my throat so that it filled only half of my thoughts. I heard breathing, slow and deliberate, right next to me on two sides. I heard breathing farther away, from many points, all around me. I heard thudding, and remembered my own heart, and recognized the similarity and the difference, again, close by and farther away. I heard so many things I would never have heard before, things that would never have captured my notice.

I breathed deeply, and the thirst scorched again, and I smelled fragrances, very sweet beside me, unappealingly in close proximity, and very appealingly somewhat in the the distance, so appealing that I finally opened my eyes while also moving my whole body, and not knowing how, I was moving faster than was possible. My muscles exploded with strength I could not comprehend, strength they should not be able to muster, exploded towards the fragrance as quickly as possible.

I could see _everything_, the cuts and scratches and dust on the wooden beams of the roof I had seen before, every single straw of hay in the haystacks near me, every mote of sawdust on the floor around me, every single hair on the horse in the crude stall, every feather on the chickens in the pen. I saw the two people who had been next to me, and I remembered them from before the burning, but they were far more vivid, a pale and beautiful woman with auburn hair cascading around her shoulders, and the sandy haired lad with a wide grin on his face.

I hit the roof and exploded through it before I could finally make sense of everything, or at least of anything, and as the timbers exploded around me, splinters of wood flying with me through the air, and I was out in the bright and starry night, the half moon above me. The air blew across my face, and my whole body was stretched out as I reeled through the night, and I laughed aloud for the first time I could remember since my days in Philadelphia.

The ground was coming towards me quickly, I saw, and I could make out every blade of the long grass as I approached, every grain of dirt. My mind thought to protect myself from the fall, but my body moved instinctively, and I landed softly, catlike, gracefully, crouched on my feet and hands. The scent was alluring again when I hit the ground, the air above having washed it away for a brief second.

Another scent, the sweet scent from before, was suddenly near me, and my eyes moved from the small cottage where I knew the fragrance that burned my throat led. My body moved too, and a noise came from me that I didn't recognize, that I could not compare to anything else, but I could define as a growl. I was defensive now, for I could not allow the sweet scent, and the owners of the scent, near the fragrance of the cottage, for it was _mine_.

The beautiful people were a few yards away, the sandy haired boy I vaguely recognized as William and the alluring woman that I thought was Mary, frozen in their attempts to reach out for me when I turned to attack. I assessed, briefly, the danger, then launched myself at the boy, bigger, in a way both natural and unnatural, for I had never attacked with my teeth, but it felt very right.

The woman was faster than me, but not stronger. She was wrapped around me in an instant, but she could not stop me, only slow me down. That was enough. Enough time for the boy to look at my face and shout, loudly.

"Garrett!" he exclaimed, and the sound of my name stopped me as I reached for his throat, and his deep crimson eyes penetrated me.

He looked at me with some surprise, but mostly amusement, then inclined his head in the direction of the cottage. "Isn't there something else you'd rather do?" William asked. I turned then, the woman still pulling on my body, and inhaled again, deeply. I felt the strength in me, focused now, and used it to peal the woman, Mary, off my body, and then I was moving towards the cottage again.

Yes, there was something else I wanted to do.


	8. 6 MONSTER 1781

6

**MONSTER (1781)**

The smell from the cottage was too much, and I was there in what would have been a heartbeat, were my heart still beating. I ripped the door off of its hinges, barely aware that it was heavy and oak and that I should not be able to lift it, for I was not aware of anything. I did not know if I was alive or dead, in the world I knew or some other world, for no one had explained, and this scent was too all-encompassing for me to think of anything else.

They were huddled together, bound up in ropes, their arms pinned to their bodies tightly, perhaps too tightly, because the chafing had caused them to bleed where their wrists were bound behind their back. A man lay on the floor by the stove, his body empty of the wonderful scent, with only a dull hint that it had been there before. The woman and girl looked at me, and they screamed.

Their screams were muffled by the cloth tied in their mouths, but the older woman had loosened hers to the point where, with my new hearing, it was quite loud. The self preservation once more overtook me when I heard the sound, and I stepped back to the now useless doorway. I looked around briefly, but captured everything. The barn stood a few hundred yards away, the roof still collapsing from where I had destroyed it, a timber dangling, ready to fall inside. The fields beyond were filled with tobacco weed. There was nothing else near us. The only light, though I needed no light, came from the small fire in the stove next to the dead body. That light was projecting towards the door, towards me, so the women could see me better than anything else.

The two pale figures, William and Mary, stood ten paces from the cottage, but their eyes and their posture displayed no desire to move closer.

I turned back to look at the women, who would have been completely helpless were they not gagged. I did not know the look on my face, but the older woman moved in front of the younger, as much as she could. So I could guess at my expression. The blood on their wrists was intoxicating from smell alone. I could not imagine how it tasted. I moved toward them without thinking, my throat a burning torch, yearning for their blood to put it out. Their scent inflamed the torch, and it burned hotter and brighter than I would have imagined, had I not just experienced the worst form of fire imaginable. I was next to the older in an instant.

A strange feeling overcame me then, in a small corner of my newly humungous mind. A corner that remembered the man I had been before. _This is not right!_ It screamed, and I hesitated. No, this was not right. I assessed the situation, trying to understand it. I craved blood, the blood of these women, I knew that from the smell. I needed it. Craved was the wrong word. But the older woman was a mother. The younger, the girl, was her daughter. The dead man was her father. This was their home.

The picture painted itself vividly in my mind, the father growing tobacco, the mother teaching the child at home, a family that had little contact with the outside world on a daily basis, for they lived too far away. They lived on their crops, the man bartering it for food and provisions, and they had the horse that I'd seen, and a wagon that I had not, to travel to and from town. They ate the chickens when they were desperate. They were a very common farming family.

Yes, this was wrong.

I thought for a moment. What was wrong? I knew not what I was, for my heart did not beat. I did not seem to be in heaven or hell. But this was wrong. _Perhaps another way. If they were evil, and I caught them. If I'd caught them at all._ Now that was far more appealing. If I could catch this scent! My morals from my old life told me all the reasons this was wrong, but my new life added a new one: _This should be fun! This should be an adventure! Not like this!_ Was that my old self or my new self, or the first time the two had merged?

A draft of air, nothing more, entered the cottage, and their scent hit me again, and my teeth were on the neck of the mother, and I was drinking.

Yes! Ah, God, yes! It was even better than it smelled, the taste, a sweet ambrosia to which nothing in my old life, or my old lives, could ever compare. The finest ale, the best meat, nothing could compare. So I went on to loftier comparisons. Susan's smell. Susan's kiss. Susan's face. Even these, in the moment, could not compare to the amazing delight of this taste.

It was far too easy with her bound, I was finished so quickly that disappointment reigned over other emotions, and I moved instantly to the daughter, for the scorching thirst in my throat was nowhere near being satisfied. I was more humane with her, now that I could be, breaking her neck quickly, then draining the blood from her body with ease. The open torch became a dull flame when I drained her too, for the scent was gone, and I felt strangely full, as if I had eaten a Christmas feast myself, ignoring the rest of my family. My old family.

I heard movement then, and immediately I was away from the girl and crouched defensively against the strangers who were not strangers, their pale faces remarkably beautiful in the light of the stove, stone and serene and impossibly still as they looked at me.

"He does not understand," Mary said, looking at William with distaste, as if he had done something horrible. "This is why we explain first and hunt second. He does not understand what he has become, and it makes him angry and defensive."

"Nonsense," William replied, "I know him and he knows me, and I've made everything easy for him. We just have to let him know the particulars. He won't try to kill me again." William moved closer, and I tensed. "Garrett? Would you like to know what has happened to you?" he asked, and there was condescension in his voice, the same condescension I had once used with him, so many years ago.

I moved again, straight upright, then deliberately away from the scene of the massacre, out the doorway and back to the barn I had nearly destroyed, to the place where I had been destroyed, and stood next to the wooden table where I had lain as William and Mary entered.

William waited, and I spoke first: "I was dying," I stopped immediately, for this was not my voice, low and gruff, but a more musical version of my voice, as if I was speaking to a baby, or to Susan.

"Yes," William replied, and stepped away from Mary, toward me. He waited for me to continue.

"The wound to my gut was fatal, the doctor could do nothing about it," my voice distracted me again for a moment, "And then I saw you, though you look so different, and too young, and I saw her, and you said you owed me something. And then someone lit me on fire." I guessed the last part.

"Not quite," William replied. "We saved your life. You are correct, you would have died from the bayonet. But we saved you. The fire was the only way to do it," he finished, and smiled, satisfied.

I was horrified, my memories were jumbled, but I knew that whatever they had done, they had not saved me. "What did you do?" I whispered. "What…am I?"

Mary stepped next to William, then a step further, between us, amazingly graceful, as if she had glided between us. "Do you know anything of myth? Of vampires?" she asked, very cautiously.

My mind reeled. Vampires. Drinking blood. It was an old myth, not one the church believed in. Witches had been the myth of choice, but even they were highly doubtful now. Vampires? They were a ridiculous myth, like the giant, human bear that attacked fur seekers.

"What is a vampire?" I asked, very cautious.

"We're what humans can't be," William replied. "We're the most important creatures in this world," he added, "We are to humans what the human is to the cow." I looked away from the elated look in his face in revulsion. But he continued. "We are the rightful rulers of this world, the beings that could destroy King George and everyone like him, for we are more powerful, you are more powerful, than you could possibly imagine. I have given you the greatest gift in the world, for now your freedom is absolute."

Mary broke in before he could continue. "We cannot be killed, except by fire. We are stronger than the strongest of stone, and we cannot be broken, except by another of our kind. We do not breathe, we do not sleep. Our minds are able to comprehend more than any other. We need blood, human blood, to survive, though I do not know if it would kill us to live without it, only that it is our greatest desire. We move faster than humans can see, we are stronger than any human can imagine. And we do not get old. Your face now will be your face in the next century, and every century beyond."

In response, I held my breath for the first time since I'd opened my eyes. I did not need this. I did not need to breathe. It was only my old instincts that convinced me such. I could not smell or taste anything around me, which was very uncomfortable, but there was no necessity in it. And my new mind immediately turned off the old reaction, and I suddenly knew that I would never breathe again unless I decided to. Everything that Mary had said, my new mind now connected, the strength and the speed, the invulnerability. My new mind was overtaking the old, accepting the new body now that it understood. How strange, to have a mind so vast that a part of it could step away and examine its own workings and dispassionately evaluate it.

"Garrett," William suddenly spoke, "If there is anything of your old memories you wish to keep, you should think of them now. I lost nearly everything but my…father and you. My human life is vague. I do not think you want that." I did not wait, but prioritized. I remembered Susan, and held to that murky memory, and wished I could see her with my new eyes. Then I held to everything around her, and found that the revolution, and the Declaration, and everything about my year with Susan, was the second most important thing, that any doubts I'd felt in the hopelessness of the war were gone, that only Susan was more important than the war, than liberty, than independence. My new mind formed this too, as if creating a bond between the old and the new.

In that melding of minds, I was suddenly horrified at what I had done in the cottage. I understood the need for blood, but the manner in which I'd taken it spoke against the old me, and against the new me. I was a monster, and I had to be stopped. "What have you done to me?" I nearly screamed it. "You have turned me into a fairy tale monster worse than anything I've ever imagined! You have made me evil!" I spat out the last, my indignation rivaling my horror.

"Were you not listening?" William replied. "I have given you everything. You are now freer than every living being on the planet. Forget the British. You are free of even the most tedious of things, the mortality of living." He spoke confidently, and I remembered his confidence during the burning, that I would be just like him.

Mary saw otherwise. She moved next to me, willingly, and placed her hand on mine. "You were dying, and now you are not. What you do with this is your own choice." She looked into my face with crimson eyes, eyes that fit her face perfectly, not wide nor narrow, and she spoke the truth. There was pain in those eyes, though I knew not the reason. And I finally saw the color of my own, not crimson but very bright red, the color of the coats of the British.

"Ah, God!" I murmured, though they could hear, and my hands cracked the wooden table, my old coffin, in half with their new strength.

William stepped next to me, and spoke again, this time with authority. "You have begun a new and better life, a life you can …" He stopped at my eyes.

I looked at my own eyes in William's and replied curtly, "If this is who I am, then no more bound women. A little less blood, but a lot more fun!" My voice went from a whisper to an exclamation. For the first time in six years, I was ready to have fun.

"You cannot even imagine. Accept it. I have given you a gift beyond your wildest dreams."

I looked in his eyes, no longer remembering when they had been blue, and did the only thing I could, or at least the only thing I would. I accepted it. But for one detail.


	9. 7 SAVAGES 1783

7

**SAVAGES (1783)**

The Indian sprinted through the woods, quietly, I supposed, to human ears, but I was able to track him quite easily through my hearing alone.

Which was completely unnecessary with his intoxicating scent filling my body, burning my throat with need, reminding me once again of the open torch that had been lit in my body a year and a half ago. I tossed that thought aside as I watched the squaw, darting through the forest after the large boar he had spotted. He had no knowledge that there were two hunters in a chase right now – though if the boar sought prey and was unaware of the savage, I supposed there were three.

I moved among the trees above, leaping from branch to branch to ensure I did not expose myself before the moment of the kill. It was close now, but I did not rush. My eyes had gone from bright red to a darker shade in the past months, and my control was far greater than I could have imagined in the first year of the third incarnation of my life.

The Indian moved quickly and carefully, taking a path that would intercept the boar rather than chasing blindly. He would have seemed a clever hunter to any mind but my own, skillful and graceful. His dark skin was entirely exposed above the waist, muscle and sinew built from years of hunting and killing, prey like the boar, and prey like my own, or at least my former, race. The savages were fun to hunt, for they were far more agile than my former kind. Where I had once relied upon brute force and heavy weapons, they used their minds and their speed, sought to understand their prey in order to destroy it. I had grown to respect them over the past half year. They were artists, of a sort, and of course, their artistry made the hunt far more fun.

I moved from the trees to the forest floor, as loudly as I could, and hissed to draw the attention of the Indian. This was the new joy to overcoming my newborn tendencies. Never before could I, would I, have had the patience to postpone the kill, to savor it. I waited for the savage to turn. He seemed painfully slow in my mind, though it was but a second. The eyes that returned my stare were initially shocked, but they became, again, the eyes of a hunter. Perhaps I was seeing a bit of my own eyes.

The Indian moved slowly, attempting to evaluate his new prey. I reflected on my own appearance and wondered what it meant to him. Torn and tattered clothing, skin paler than any pale face he had encountered, sandy hair run wild, dirt and leaves covering my body, hanging from my hair and beard, and of course the eyes. Eyes like no human could have: dark, red eyes with only the smallest hint of pupils, the iris overcoming what white was still there. No, I was not his average pale face, and he responded in kind.

He crouched, as I crouched, and the blade of his knife was in front of him in his left hand, his small axe – I'd heard it called "tomahawk" from those who'd fought the Indians that aided the British during the war – coiled behind him in his right hand. His body was lithe and tense, all of his muscles prepared for a surprising new fight. Yes, I respected these Indians, for they knew when there was no purpose in running. So much more _fun_!

The axe spun from his hand towards me, as if in slow motion to my eyes, and I caught the handle with my left hand a full foot in front of my face. I briefly considered what to do with it, and then tossed it back as gently as I could. "You may want to keep that," I said, and heard the smile in my words.

The Indian did not move, and let the axe fall beside him. He certainly had no intention of speaking, now that he fully understood the danger. Then he rolled to the axe and spun into another crouch before launching himself across the five feet between us. I did not move until he was nearly upon me, waited until the last possible second, and then darted to the side so that he landed right next to me. I hesitated, allowing him awareness of my new position, and waited for him to strike with the knife. He slashed fluidly, bringing his right side across with the axe directly behind the knife.

I twirled between his arms and around them, until I was once again beside the savage. He was very smart, even among his people, brilliant hunters that they were, and the axe turned against the momentum of his original blow, towards me once again. The best move he would ever be able to make against one such as me. My fun was over for the day, I knew, but this Indian had been an immensely enjoyable hunt. I ducked underneath the axe and stopped his body as the knife returned, then smoothly broke his neck before opening his throat and enjoying the pleasure of the kill.

I was aware of the presences behind me, smelled the strange roses and perfume scent of William, a scent that was very difficult to reconcile with the man I had known, and the lovelier woodsy scent of Mary, who smelled like a wildflower in the midst of a deep forest, a wildflower never seen by man. I finished quickly, alleviating William's impatience, and turned to them.

"Have fun letting the savage think he could kill you?" William asked, a smirk on his face, the mirth always edged with something darker. His expression, as always, was both amused and bemused at the same time, as if a great conflict stormed through his head. Above all, the expression was rueful, and that expression had cropped up in the last few months.

Mary was…curious. Again. She could not understand this new creature she had made. She could not understand either of the creatures she had made.

The first months of my new life had gone quickly, and they were filled only with the prey. I knew nothing except the bloodlust. My thirst could never be satiated, no matter how many I killed. I would only stop when I could drink no more.

At first, I looked to William, for he was eager for me to kill, to placate my needs. Mary had been reticent, had wanted to help me control the fire, but William was always accommodating, finding a new farm, a small village. We'd moved west through Virginia from that small farmhouse outside of Petersburg where I'd made my first kill, into the frontier. Our speed let us go anywhere that was convenient, and we had hunted in and out of the Appalachian Mountains, east and west, as we needed. William was always confident that our prey would be seen as the unfortunate victims of Indians, and we carefully burned the homes when we were finished.

I discovered the new things about myself quickly. The sun was the first. When they saw my astonishment at my new skin in the sunlight, the very first day of my vampire existence, William and Mary immediately brought me to a slow moving stream, allowing me to see my self, skin glinting, no, glowing, with gold. I had seen them already, so I knew what to expect, but it was nearly impossible to understand that this was my skin, my body, and not someone entirely different. It was only when I put my hand in the water and the image blurred that I could break away, but I did not truly accept my new appearance.

When I saw it again, this time in the dark, in the mirror in one of the homes that we massacred, the experience was completely different. I was still another species, but not quite as different anymore. I supposed I was beautiful, pale skin and red eyes, my six feet and four inches covered in marble instead of skin. I was beautiful, I knew it, nut nothing compare to the go and goddess that accompanied me. I had no regard for my outward appearance, and my hair was pulled back in a ponytail, my clothes shabby and dirty, the blue coat of my old life torn in places. When I saw the condition of the coat, I became more cautious during the hunt, wanting to protect it.

For I was a savage now too, a monster, but those two memories I'd placed above all else, those two memories that I held from William's suggestion, had become the core of my new character, along with the joy of the hunt. Susan, freedom, the hunt. If I was honest, the hunt usually came first. But when my thirst was briefly tamed, they were the most important of my thoughts.

That I could not sleep was torment, for it made the thirst, no, the hunt, my obsession. There was very little to occupy my expanded mind when we were not hunting. I learned William's story quickly, but Mary was not forthcoming, so conversation meant little to me. William and Mary conversed often, but I was already a taciturn man by nature, and their conversation could not divert me. Only the hunt.

I learned slowly of the natures of my two new companions, though I could not claim to know them. My first reaction to them, when my sanity was restored, was a burst of laughter. They looked at me quizzically. "You're William and Mary? As in 'William and Mary', king and queen of England? I go from fighting a damned revolution to living with the king and queen of yore?" William laughed with me, though Mary showed little amusement. Mary never showed amusement.

Mary was quiet, and strange. She did not enjoy the hunt as I did, did not enjoy the kill as William did. She killed efficiently and without discrimination. She took little pleasure in anything, from what I could see. Most of all she was alone. I could not understand her, but I knew our presence did little to help her. I guessed, after the first year, the purpose for the creation of William and me, but it had done little for her state of mind. She could not understand me, and, when I watched her as she watched William, she longed to understand him.

I knew what she did not. The hunt held no interest for him, as it did for me. It was the kill he enjoyed. When we began, he tried again and again to emulate that first kill of mine, or at least its circumstances. He preyed on farms and families, on children and women, it did not matter. He sought to prolong the kill, just as I sought to prolong the hunt. Whereas I would kill a savage quickly after allowing him to fight, William prolonged the moment of the victim's death, so that he could savor it. He was more interested in prolonging their torture. His favorite pleasure in our Indian hunts was forcing the mothers to watch their children die.

After the first year, I insisted we move west, towards the frontier and away from civilization. There was no joy in hunting the way William wished. They accommodated the newborn, though William was increasingly unhappy with destroying Indian villages by himself. He saw us as family, and felt we should feast together.

We were ill-matched as a trio, and I should have anticipated an explosion.

We returned from my hunt of the Indian to a small clearing, and I pulled off my jacket to inspect it, to make sure it had not been further damaged. We had not been near a needle and thread in a very long time. I ignored the conversation between William and Mary as I examined the coat, until it was suddenly more heated.

"This is not what I expected at all!" William was shouting now. "Savages and hunts for Garrett, while you run off by yourself and leave me to the fun! We should be doing this together!"

"I warned you of this," Mary replied, refusing to raise her voice. "I told you he might not be as you are, that this life might be different for him." The look on her face was resigned once again, struggling to placate William and explain as well.

"He can be like me! He just needs the proper motivation."

I grew wary of the way they spoke, as if I was not there. "Have I done something wrong?" I asked, though I knew I had not, knew that this was William's frustration. "You do not need to respond to my every whim."

"You have done no wrong, Garrett. I am simply impatient for you're true nature to emerge," William replied, though the look he gave me was wary.

"I am not who you want me to be. I understand that. What would you have me do?"

It was Mary who responded. "You need not do anything. You are exactly what you should be. There is only one rule, as I have told you, and you do not break it." She had pushed William to allow me my new path, had never complained, had even helped me to control myself in the presence of the delicious humans. I knew not why, for she seemed to love William so much.

"Yes, one rule, do not reveal ourselves. But this life is so much more! My way does not upset your Italian rulers either. This must end. We must return to civilization," William was not angry anymore. He was resolved. "I'm going to find another village full of Indians to drink," he said, quietly now. "But when I return, we must find a new way to exist together. Our family will not survive this way." He turned to leave.

"Coven," Mary said. "And perhaps we are not so strongly bound as you believe."

William's look was dismissive. "I'm about to change that," he replied, and then launched himself through the trees.

He did not return.


	10. 8 WILLIAM 1782

8

**8. WILLIAM (1782)**

"I went to the woods to relieve myself," he said. "Not the most auspicious of moments for my new awakening."

I looked into his cold red eyes, which did not match his smile. We had stopped beyond a small village called Blacksburg in southwestern Virginia. We had hunted for months to fulfill my thirst, and although I had asked how William came to the new life before, he only now trusted that I was able to comprehend his story. Though Mary insisted that all of my new kind, vampires, were different, William waited until he was sure of me, waited the exact amount of time that he himself had needed with Mary before he was capable of rational thought. He was very convinced that my transformation was exactly the same as his in every facet.

"I did not see my angel of glory before she kissed me on the throat and made me so much better than I'd ever thought possible."

"I was not hungry, but you were so very alluring. I was alone too long. I finally tried my hand at something other than killing," Mary whispered. I guessed at her reasons, but I could not know. She was not a companion to me, but perhaps she wanted to be. I knew the bonds of found family as well as anyone. "You were too beautiful to kill, but too beautiful to resist.

William smiled at her, but there was not the same love in his smile as there was in her words. I looked at him closely, sixteen forever, and though I had lived more years, I knew that though I was now twenty-six for eternity, I would not match his age. I was older, yet somehow younger than him.

"She took me west, outside Harrisburg, and we stayed in a barn, much like you, while I transformed," he continued. "You know that pain," I winced as he said it, "I need not relive it. When I awoke, I was a new man. The thirst was unbearable, of course. Mary did not provide for me as I did for you."

He looked at her with reproach, and she looked away, an expression I did not understand clouding her face. It was a mixture of remorse, pain, and anger, but I did not know which emotion was most prevalent.

"We hunted then. I cannot tell you the joy of that first kill. It was as if I had finally found my place in this world. As if I was made for this life," his arrogance was back, consuming any other emotions he had displayed when he spoke of the change. "And I am made for this life. Everything I could not have but desired in my old life is in front of me. The power is…intoxicating. Nearly as intoxicating as the blood. I am better than everything else now, stronger. I could crush a British soldier with my bare hands, could destroy an entire regiment by myself. My greatest wishes were no longer fantasy, but reality," he moved from the present to the past in his speech, but gave me a glimpse of this person I had known before, and I knew he was wholly different.

"We moved through the Pennsylvania countryside, killing randomly until I was a newborn no longer, until I was able to be rational, somewhat, as you are now, Garrett. Mary was very patient. She is more adept at training newborns than she realizes." He smiled at her, and she smiled back, though her smile did not have the confidence of his.

"I knew the rule, our only rule, and I soon knew how to enjoy myself without violating it. We started by killing Indians and fur traders, attacking the occasional scout from the war. The scouts helped me to hone my technique. I took time with the British scouts, capturing them and speaking to them before I killed them. At first it was to gain information, but I realized quickly that the kill was far better with these captured scouts and soldiers. And I had no one to whom I could give the information anyway!" William laughed, and Mary shuddered. I wanted to shudder too, but my new mind did not accept that this was wrong. Perhaps this would be more fun than the way I was hunting. Perhaps the hunt could be more enjoyable. Was that even possible?

"So we began our new way of killing. Mary helped me to bear the scent of humans, and we moved among them, so that I could know them better. It was very difficult at first, and we fled a few times when the scent overtook me, but eventually I was able withstand the urge. I could stand right beside a human and not kill it. Then the fun began."

The gleam in William's eye was absolutely genuine. "I could prolong the glorious moment of the kill as I wanted after that. I could hold a family for days, killing them one at a time, savoring each kill more fully than any before it. I was powerful and I was happy, but for two things."

"As I told you when you first changed, we can only bring some aspects of our character with us, and some elements and memories are lost. I brought two with me. The first was my love of family. I had loved both my families, my own and that of the Continental Army. When I returned to New York, I could not contain my exuberance for blood with my old family, but they were one of the better feasts I had in my newborn state. So I refused to allow the same for my second family, namely, Mary and you." William looked at me then, hope filling his red eyes.

"I craved family more than anything besides the kill. Mary provided comfort, but I needed more," he looked at Mary again, and I expected his disappointment, but not hers. She did not share his desires.

"So we found you. I suppose 'stalked you' would be more appropriate. Our endeavors were not enough to fulfill us; Mary did not even enjoy our new form of killing, though I know not why. We had our feast for four years, but it was not complete. We found you as you marched to Virginia."

"He convinced me that we were not enough as two," Mary said. There was only resentment now in her expression.

"Who could possibly be more suited for this new world than Garrett?" William exclaimed. "You, who love freedom more than you love anything else, including your own happiness! I had discovered the ultimate freedom, and I could give it to the man who appreciated freedom above all others, who was willing to sacrifice being with the love of his life for it," William looked in my eyes then. "You speak of Susan often in your sleep. You will not talk of her awake, you love her so much, you're pain is so great. That you could give that up for freedom is remarkable beyond measure. You are perfectly suited for our world.

"And now we are three! My family grows, and so does my happiness!" He swept his arms wide, joy all over his face. For the briefest of seconds he resembled more closely the boy I had known, until his expression changed from a broad smile, full of white teeth, to a smaller smirk, a wicked look. The new smirk matched his eyes, which had never reflected his joy. "Tomorrow, Garrett, I will show you how I kill. We shall be a pair of vampires for the ages. Perhaps we can even convince Mary to join the festivities."

I looked at Mary then, and was surprised to find she was looking directly at me. Once again, her look held many emotions, warning and curiosity chief among them.

Before we hunted, Mary approached me. "May I speak to you privately, Garrett?" she asked, and looked up into my face. She was a small woman to me, I was over a foot greater in height, yet her presence was both gentle and commanding. Her pale skin made her doll-like, but the ferocity of her eyes dispelled the impression. Were it not for my memories of Susan, she might have convinced me to change my tastes from blondes to brunettes. She was incredibly beautiful

"Privately? Our family has no secrets!" William looked up from the clothing he was trying to wash in a nearby stream, wearing only his britches, so his golden skin gleamed brightly all over. His look was shocked. It was the first time I'd seen the expression on his face since I'd changed.

I was, frankly, quite surprised as well, although I knew from her eyes during his story that a great conflict stormed in her.

"It is simply a delicate matter about transformation and being a newborn I wish to discuss with him, as I have been around longer. This matter may embarrass him were he speaking near you." I saw that it was a lie immediately because I was looking directly into her face, but William saw nothing, and agreed with a nod. She loped into the woods away from the clearing without another word, and I followed as best I could, though she was faster. We went only a half mile before she stopped and turned, gracefully sitting atop the remains of a fallen tree. I stood above her, waiting expectantly.

"Well?" I asked, when she said nothing. She looked up at me, her expression unreadable

"Tell me Garrett, what was William like before…?" She trailed off and waited for my answer.

I hesitated, unsure where the question led, then described him as best I could. "He was happy, enthusiastic about the war and the cause, youthful. He was very trusting. He loved his family very much. He was not a great soldier, but he was a survivor. He could be easily frustrated, and had little patience, but he was almost never angry. He had the ability to make almost anyone feel comfortable. He was very forthright. He was my friend," I finished. I had a question of my own. "Is he any of these things now? I do not know if it is my newness, but I find him very different from my memories of before. How much do we change, from our old lives to the new?"

She was staring at me, but she looked away at my question, though she responded. "He is a great many of those things. He is trusting. He trusts both of us completely. He is still impatient. He places a great deal of importance on family." I gained very little from her answer as to the purpose of our conversation, so I waited again for her to speak. "I know not what qualities we bring from the old life to the new, but he seems to have some of them, and so do you. So do I." When she saw the flash in my eyes, she stopped my question. "No Garrett Smith, you will not here my story, not now. Perhaps…someday."

"You brought me here for a reason." I said.

"Be very careful, Garrett. William has a certain power to him, as some of our kind can possess, something beyond what we are capable of. He has a certain way of…convincing people to do what he wants. He convinced me to change you, though I did not agree with the decision. Everyday, he wills us to stay together, though three vampires together is a very rare thing. He approaches a home, and he is welcomed with open arms. Welcomed right up to the moment when the screaming begins. His way of killing is viscious and cruel. If he was compassionate in his old life, that characteristic was lost. It has been replaced with a desire for power. He calls us a family, but we are a coven, and he has a great desire to lead it. As he seeks to demonstrate his power to his victims, he seeks the same with us.

"You have an independent nature, Garrett. Keep it about you as you go on this hunt. It may not be the kind of hunting you desire. It disgusts me, and I have seen a great deal of horrible things in my time. Keep your independence about you whenever you are near him, hold it tight, or you may not recognize the monster you eventually become."

So this was a warning.

"He is waiting for you," she declared, and I knew the tone of dismissal. She folded her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms about her, and put her head down, deep in thought. I returned to William, and we left for his hunting trip.


	11. 9 PHILADELPHIA 1783

9

**PHILADELPHIA (1783)**

"What could he be doing?" I asked. My old memories told me I should be pacing, but I stood stock still.

"I do not know," Mary replied, and her eyes held nothing. "Family has always been the most important thing to him. I cannot imagine that he would leave us. He was upset, but he felt he had an answer. Perhaps we should follow and see what that answer is." She looked concerned, but nothing more.

"It's a plan, I suppose. I have nothing better, though I don't feel the same allegiance to him that you do."

Her look became harsh. "It was because of you that he left," she warned. "Though you may not feel the attachment, he does. Whatever he is doing now, I would expect that it is about you. What could he do that would effect you?"

I thought for a moment, and then horror struck me, horror beyond measure. I said nothing, but launched myself after his scent. I was vaguely aware that Mary followed.

We tracked his path north and east, out of the land called Kentucky, crossing the Appalachians in northwestern Virginia. I pictured the maps of the land I had seen, and became surer of our destination with every moment, more desperate, and more horrified. We found a body, but it was not his usual manner of victim. It was like one of Mary's kills, quick and efficient. He was making sure to stay ahead of us.

Mary did not need to kill, and I ignored my growing thirst, my desperation greater with every mile, and then with every step. I sought to dispel it from my mind, but it was more impossible with each leap. I was only aware that we were closer, ever closer. So obsessed had I become with Philadelphia that as we approached, I was unaware that I was no longer following Mary. I only realized that she was not in front of me when I lost William's roses and perfume scent.

I turned back and found it, and in a matter of seconds, I had caught up to Mary, who was waiting for me. "I don't understand!" I exclaimed when I reached her. "We are nearly there! Why would he turn east now?"

We had not spoken for nearly ten hours, and she had not expected the intensity of my voice. "I have guessed now what you guessed before, though I cannot know his reasons for returning to your home. Why he turns now is just another mystery."

"I can only guess that he means to kill Susan or my family, to dispense with my thoughts of my old life, embrace the new. I told him little of my old life, but he knows my name, he could find any of them if he wished." I longed to race to Philadelphia, yet longed to follow the trail. Should we split up?

"We follow the trail," Mary responded, answering the unspoken question. "You are too new to enter Philadelphia without feeding first. The smell would be too much. We will see where he went."

I nodded in response and immediately returned to the trail. We soon found ourselves outside a small village, Chester. William's trail ran straight through the village, and I held my breath as we entered, avoiding any distraction. We streaked through as quickly as possible, the sun low in the sky, nearing night, until we found ourselves standing on the bank of the Delaware. I quickly pulled my tricolor as low over my head as possible and ducked my chin, my hands in the pockets of my coat. Mary had already tied her bonnet around her face and tucked her hands in the folds of her skirt. She kept her face down as well, and spoke so that only I could hear. We were surrounded by humans, and I was very aware of the breath I held.

"He has entered the river, so that we cannot find his scent. You must not speak, you must not breathe. Leave the village immediately and return to where his trail turned. I will search for his scent, but you must hunt until you can hunt no more, for if I do not find the scent here or across the river, we will enter the city, and you must be prepared for the scent. I will meet you there when night falls." She risked a look at my face, and I saw the glint of gold on her skin.

I forced myself to nod and turn, and then I was moving again, too quickly for human eyes, back through the town until the human scent no longer surrounded me. And then I was in the open. I had agreed to Mary's plan. I needed to hunt.

I filled myself quickly, for the need was no longer as great, before I decided Mary's plan required refinement. I had found a small farm, an old couple, and I killed them quickly and easily, and then burned the place to the ground. I turned back to the village, and was there in a moment. I needed to be around the scent, to have it surround me in a way I never had before. I needed to be prepared.

I entered a small tavern and felt the warmth all around me, the warmth of the fire in the hearth completely unnecessary, with the warmth of the humans around me nearly burning. I could not open my mouth, for I did not know how I would react. I sat at the bar, preparing myself, tricolor pulled low despite the rudeness of a hat indoors. I shook my head at the barmaid when she offered me ale and willed myself to open my mouth, but I could not find the strength. I was rather impressed I hadn't massacred the bar, in honesty.

I moved my eyes quickly around the tavern, examining the dozen faces around me. I placed each face in my mind, and began imagining all of their stories, who they were, their families, whether they were patriots. Humanizing them seemed slightly easier. I willed myself again.

I opened my mouth.

The burning tore through me. It took everything I could muster not to leap at the nearest patron, or across the bar at the barmaid. My grip on the brass bar was too great, and it folded inward, though it did not collapse. I sucked the air in again, picturing the massacre, and pictured doing the same to Susan, and it was…easier. I focused everything on Susan, every part of my enormous brain that I could, and I sucked another breath through my mouth. The burn was duller. I could not risk the scent, but I could breathe through my mouth. I realized I'd been motionless, so I shifted slightly in my seat, and I was aware of her next to me.

"What are you doing?" Mary whispered. "Why are you here?"

"I needed to know if I could bear the scent," I whispered back, reluctant to release the air I might need to speak again.

"And?" she asked, looking at my face.

I sucked in another breath in response, shuddering slightly at the burn. "I can bear it, if barely," I responded.

Shock crossed her face, and she spoke so quietly I did not know if the words were meant for me, though she addressed me. "You are a remarkable man, Garrett Smith, to withstand this scent with no training, in such a crowded place."

Our conversation had taken but seconds, but one of the patrons moved toward Mary, the only female in the bar besides the barmaid. I recognized his intentions immediately, and took her elbow as I moved us out of the bar and into the warm night, taking in the new air immediately to wash away the burn. I doubted I had been there more than three minutes. I did not go towards our meeting point, but moved north and east from Chester, towards my home, following the river.

"You found no sign," I said, and it was not a question.

"He did not return to this side between here and the city, and he did not emerge on the other side. I can only guess that he moved up the river and entered the city from the docks."

So close! Susan's house was only blocks away from those docks. I released Mary immediately and we were running, closing the short miles in only a few minutes. We leapt the Schulykill easily, crossed the land north of the river, ignoring the docks, and she stopped me when we reached the southern end of Broad Street.

"Are you ready?" Mary asked. "This will be like the tavern. You will be surrounded by people."

"I have to be," I replied and moved forward slowly, as humanly as possible.

Mary curled her arm into mine, as if we were only a couple out for a walk. I moved us west along South Street, then north on Fifth Street, very close now to my old home, my old work, my old life, my old love. A very long walk for a couple in the night, though no one seemed to notice. We stopped at Market.

"Susan or your family?" she asked.

"Susan," I replied, and we turned east on Market. Before I could think I was in front of her house. I realized that I had not breathed in nearly an hour. The sky was very dark above us, the stars beautiful, with no moon to deflect their light.

"You are my cousin, from New York," I instructed quietly. "Mr. Kelly will answer. My body was found in New York, and you wish to inform Susan Kelly, for I had a letter of hers on my person. You need to deliver the news in person. My immediate family could not take the pain. He does not know my family, he will not know the truth."

Mary nodded, and I was quickly on a very familiar branch of a very familiar tree. I examined Susan's room, but there was no sign that she had lived here in a long time. I was still unwilling to breathe through my nose, so I could not organize the human scents around the house, only the dull burning.

Mary knocked quietly. It was not late, but perhaps too late for visitors. "Yes?" Mr. Kelly answered, clearly irritable at the intrusion. He was older, heavier, and what hair he had left was grayer. Mrs. Kelly was behind him, but I did not see any other family members.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Kelly. My name is Mary Winthrop," she said the name smoothly, and I wondered if it was her real name. "My cousin is Garrett Smith. Was, I should say. He was…he died in New York earlier this week, and I have returned his body here with my husband, for I live there, so that he could be buried with his family."

Mary lied very smoothly, and put real grief in her voice, faking tears in order to keep her face from the light.

"Garrett…Smith? I remember the lad. I thought he died in the war. Why are you here?" Mr. Kelly responded.

"He carried a letter with him, in the pocket of his uniform, a letter for a Susan Kelly." I patted Susan's letter, always near my heart, as she spoke. "I wanted her to have it."

"I don't know if that is such a good idea," Mrs. Kelly offered from behind her husband.

"The letter is addressed to her, and I want to respect my cousin's wishes. If I could speak to Susan?"

"Why did your family not tell you? Susan is Mrs. Roland now. She lives on Rittenhouse Square." Mr. Kelly looked suspicious, and I cursed myself for my lack of foresight.

Then I was reeling. Susan was married. To someone wealthy, if she lived on Rittenhouse Square. All my fears, old and new, were confirmed. She had moved on completely.

"Oh. I'm sorry, they have so much on their minds, they must have forgotten. If you could just tell me where she lives?" Mary recovered far more quickly than I could.

"She lives at the corner of Chancellor and Eighteenth Street, though I do not know if now is the time. Perhaps tomorrow?" Mr. Kelly looked annoyed again.

"Yes. Thank you for your help. I will see her tomorrow," Mary replied, but I was already moving from the roof of one building to another, west down Market, around City Hall and south on Broad, then west on Walnut, until I was only a block away. Mary caught me then.

"There is no reason to speak to her!" she hissed. "We need only affirm that she is alive, and then we should check on your family." She gripped my arm tightly, but I moved away from her, across the rooftops of the luxurious homes, until I was at the corner I sought. I peered into every window in the street, and then I found her.

Her home was gorgeous, as nice as could be found in the city. Of course she would attract the interest of a wealthy suitor. Though most of the lights were dim, I saw expensive furniture throughout the house. I assessed her new home before I concentrated on her. I used my hearing first. One, two, three, four heartbeats were in the house, two slow and steady, one moving at a normal pace, and one racing quickly. Two of the hearbeats were sleeping. I wanted the scent, but ignored it, still not trusting it. I used my eyes instead. A small child in her own bed, a very average man, Mr. Roland I presumed, in the master bedroom. The girl was no more than three, and she had Susan's lovely blonde hair, and much of her beautiful face as well. I moved to the light in the house.

Susan sat in a rocking chair, a baby in her arms, another girl, perhaps a year old. She rocked slowly, back and forth, speaking softly to the child. I stretched my hearing toward them.

"…Only a nightmare, don't worry my love, my darling Charlotte, quiet now, all is well." Her voice was exactly the same as I remembered it, unchanged in seven years. The child, Charlotte, murmured quietly in her arms.

Susan was as beautiful as the visions in my head. Older, obviously. She was twenty-six now, the same age I had been before I transformed. But her beauty had not changed, was not affected by the years. She was more mature, but still breathtaking in every aspect, astonishing me to my core, and before I could think, I inhaled through my nose.

I caught Susan's smell immediately, and it was intoxicating beyond words, beyond anything I had ever smelled, and I was outside her window without being aware of it. And then I felt a familiar body wrapping around me, except this time she was more effective in stopping my movements. "You will regret it for the rest of your existence. Possibly forever," Mary whispered in my ear.

I did the only thing I could do, and launched our bodies away from the sill, for her words cut through the smell and to my heart. We were on the roof across the street again, and I was perched on the ledge towards the home, as I had been before, Mary right next to me.

"Your family?" Mary asked.

"I need…another moment," I sighed, and stared again at Susan. I was not aware of how long I crouched on the ledge of the roof, staring at her, until she placed the baby in the crib, blew out the candle, and returned to her husband. I continued to stare until Mary roused me.

"Garrett! Where did you used to live?" She asked, with urgency in her voice.

"On Vine Street, near Fifth," I replied, still not paying attention.

"That would be north and east of here, less than a mile?" she asked.

"Yes!" I replied irritably, finally looking up from the window of the master bedroom and at Mary's face, though she was not looking at me. I followed her gaze, and saw the light, brighter than any other in the night, saw the smoke against the clear night.

"It is burning," she said. And she was right.

I did not know if I could leave Susan again, but Mary was in the air immediately moving towards my old home, and towards William. His name in my thoughts finally awakened me. He might have killed my family. He might want to kill Susan. He had to be stopped.

I moved behind her from roof to roof, across the streets of my old city. I was across Market behind her, ready to continue, when I realized she had stopped.

"I have his scent," she said, and moved away from my old home, east towards the Delaware. "I will find him. You must see what he has done, find his purpose."

She leapt towards the river as I returned to my path, until the smoke was thick around me. I searched the street when I could, and saw them. My mother, my father, my brother clutching a woman to him, a woman I assumed was his wife. What could William's purpose be, to burn my old home?

I caught his scent when the smoke moved away on a thick breeze from the river. He had moved back towards Market. I followed it to Susan's home, and I smelled three vampire scents. I smelled William, rose and perfume. I smelled Mary, the wildflower. I smelled myself, not floral, but like the deepest part of the forest. And the horror returned.

_I led _him _to _her!

The horror flooded through me, far greater than before. He did not know her last name. I had only spoken of her in my dreams. He would not be able to find her with us behind him, would not have the time. He needed to mask his scent. He needed to be careful so that we didn't find him, until we revealed where Susan was. I would go to Susan before my family, and he could divert me with the fire until he found her. He could use the river to distract us. No matter what we decided, we would be disoriented by his scent coming and going from the river. We might know his purpose, but we could not know his plan.

I was moving before I even realized it, not following his path, but the shortest distance to her home. My muscles worked as they never had before, but they were not fast enough. It was only a minute that I sprinted from rooftop to rooftop, but it was a minute too long.

She was not in the bedroom when I landed at the window. Her husband was alone. The window was still open

Then I smelled the blood.

I was in the air immediately, and I could see everything as flew towards the dark alley across the square, beyond the wealth. William's mouth was at her neck, and her blood was flowing from her body.

I barely registered the smell now. I only knew one thing.

I was too late.


	12. 10 MASSACRE 1782

10

**MASSACRE (1782)**

I followed William dutifully, curious about his method of hunting. From what I gathered, it was similar to my first kill. I remembered it well, despite the blur of memories of my newborn life. Of course I had enjoyed the kill, that first taste of blood was one of the high points, perhaps the high point, of my new life, but I also recalled the vague sense of unease before I had proceeded, the sense of _wrongness_.

I considered everything that Mary had told me before we left. William's method of hunting disgusted her. I did not know what to make of her advice to hold on to my independent nature. Either I was independent, or I wasn't. I could find little sense in her words, so I steeled myself against the possible horrors that lay before me. I followed William quietly out of the denser woods.

I saw the smoke before I saw the home. We had come further east than I was used to, much closer to civilization than I was usually allowed. We had travelled most of the day, and the twilight came upon us, I could begin to see the lights of Richmond. He directed us toward the modest home, smoke creeping from the chimney, a quaint garden to one side. It was a very beautiful, sitting on a hill, about a mile outside of the city.

William stopped me when we were about a hundred yards away, and looked at my face carefully.

"Put on your hat," he instructed, donning his own tricolor. "Take a deep breath, and hold it without releasing so that the smell does not cause you to ruin the kill. When we approach the home, I will do all of the talking. Simply nod and agree with me. Only speak if you are asked a direct question. If you must breathe, breathe through your mouth." He looked at me, nodded once, then turned towards the house, approaching very humanly, with a slow and confident stride that I tried to match.

He knocked quietly, and I once again steeled myself for the possibilities of what was coming. A man answered, thin, short, bespectacled, probably in his thirties. "Good evening gentlemen," he said politely. "How may I help you?"

Without the smell, the presence was quite bearable, though the heat from his body was a distraction.

"Good evening to you sir," William said pleasantly, as if he was the nicest young man in the world. "We are travelling from Richmond to Charlottesville, but we seem to have taken a circle, for now we find ourselves near Richmond again instead." As if we were complete imbeciles. "We were wondering if you might point us in the right direction." He smiled as widely as he could without showing his teeth, attempting to be the picture of innocence.

"Who is it, Harold?" called a woman somewhere in the house. I saw the suspicion in the man's eyes at the late hour of our travel, but the woman distracted him.

"Just a few lost travelers, dear," Harold replied loudly to her. "Naught to worry about." He turned back to us. "It will be difficult to find your way at night, but you want to go in that direction," he began to point when the woman, I assumed his wife, moved beside him.

"Good evening gentlemen," his wife's greeting matched his. She was the same age as him, very normal. They dressed plainly, a white shirt tucked into his britches, a plain dress for her. "So you have gotten yourselves lost?" She smiled at us warmly, and I remembered that we were both very attractive to them.

"Yes, we've made quite a mess of our trip," William put all of the lilting warmth of our voices into his response. "My brother and I were travelling to see our parents in their new home in Charlottesville, only we have never been there before." We resembled each other enough, though I was far taller, for the lie to be effective. "We were just asking your kind husband here – Harold, was it? – how we could get back on track. Though perhaps with the coming dark, we should return to Richmond and find a room for the night." He was a very effective liar, and I saw immediately where he led. We may not be able to stay the night, but if he played on her sympathy, we might be invited inside without lifting a finger.

But why? We could easily kill them now. There was nothing fun about being invited in. What did he enjoy about this? I thought back to what Mary said about power, but I still did not understand.

"That might be for the best," Harold said, not as welcoming as his wife. But I knew William's performance was all for her, and it worked.

"Have you travelled long?" she asked with concern. "You don't have much with you in the way of supplies."

"Most of the day. We ate what we had hours ago. Though whatever it is you are cooking smells lovely," he complimented smoothly. I smelled nothing, obviously, but human food held no appeal for us.

"Why thank you dear. Harold, we can't let these poor boys starve on our doorstep. We should at least feed them before they get back to the road. One of them is even a soldier," she said, pointing to my jacket. William smirked at my unknowing addition to his little performance.

Harold looked at his wife, then back at us, wary. "That would be lovely. I would love to see your home." There was a subtle difference in William's voice, and I remembered suddenly what Mary told me about his persuasiveness, about people opening their homes…right before the screaming.

Harold reacted to it as well. "Yes, please, come in, we have a bit of dinner to spare." He opened the door wide, and the light from inside hit us more fully.

William whispered very quietly, impossible for them to hear: "When you remove your hat, keep your head down, and stay as close to the shadows as you can." He removed his own hat and move past Harold into the foyer, Harold's wife motioning us to follow her. I ducked under the doorframe and followed William's instruction, removing my hat and ducking my head, finding a darker part of the living room where she led us, away from the small brick fireplace.

"I suppose introductions are in order," William had returned to his lilting voice and his easy smile. "My name is William Smith, and this is my older brother Garrett. Forgive him if he does not speak much, but he saw a great many things during the war that have made him a quiet man." I simply nodded to them, curious as to why William had used my last name.

"I am Harold Johnson, and this is my wife, Margaret. We are very pleased to make your acquaintance." I heard movement, above us, on the second floor, and then a banging that the couple could hear as well.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, it appears that our children know we have company. I will bring them down to meet you." She smiled at us again, then moved to the stairs.

"So, you fought in the war then?" Harold asked me politely. "I can't say I was a patriot, but I'm certainly happy for the victory—" His voice cut off with a start as William was behind him, teeth to the man's neck. Once he had cut the man off, he tossed the body to me.

"I don't like the taste of the men as much anymore. I will have my own meal soon, I believe I can wait a moment for the family to return," William did not look calm, but he did not look the animal that I pictured myself to be when I killed.

My shock and revulsion must have shown in my face. He smiled, teeth and all. "Breathe, Garrett." He used the different voice, the convincing voice, and I finally took in the air around me. And I horrified myself. The open wound was too much, I did not know how he could bear to stop. I moved towards the dying man, gasping, clutching his wound, blood spouting between his fingers. William was suddenly in front of me.

"Make your own wound," he said, warning in his voice. "Mary does not know how our venom affects others of our kind, and there might be some there from my bite."

I pushed him aside, grabbed the human's free arm, and drank deeply. My revulsion with William and myself was momentarily forgotten in the feast.

Then the family was there, the children skipping happily down the stairs with the mother right behind them. Our kill had taken only seconds. I stared at them, still feeding, my horror even greater than before, seeing myself in their eyes as their expressions went from cheerfulness to terror.

William was to the boy before he could begin to scream. Once again, he did not kill before he began to feed. My own victim was nearly dry, his heartbeat having already stopped. The mother and daughter were screaming now, Margaret grabbing her daughter and lurching toward the door. At least she was smart enough to flee.

The boy was small, no more than eight, and his heart had already stopped. William looked at me and spoke quickly. "Stop them please, Garrett." Then he returned to feeding.

I was frozen in place, and the arm I held dropped from my fingers. I could not make my muscles move. I heard William sigh, drop the boy, and move toward the door after the fleeing women. He returned to the living room with them as they struggled to escape, screaming loudly, so loudly it nearly deafened my sensitive hearing. I moved away from my crouch over the body and backed away from the monster and his next victims, my revulsion slowing my body so that my movements were humanlike. He pulled them close to the fireplace as I backed slowly into another room, the dining room from what I could tell. I wanted to vomit up the blood I had consumed.

I saw William move, though the women could not. He was back in front of them, tearing up a sheet, using the strips to gag their screams, then binding their hands behind them. Then he stepped back from their huddled forms, and I was seeing the scene from my first kill, a monster standing over two bound and helpless women by a fire, only the monster in this reenactment was even worse than my own demon.

He turned to me then. "Now it's time for the fun. Now it's time to ignore my mother's demand that I not play with my food." He smirked and moved towards me, ignoring the muffled pleas behind him. "Come now, Garrett. Time for the good part." He smiled wider, and I turned and fled the house, to get away from this despicable creature, a creature I could become.

He stopped me a hundred yards from the house. "Garrett. Return with me now. You will enjoy this." He used his convincing voice again. I turned reflexively, my mind roaring with hatred and disgust, and then I remembered what Mary had told me.

_You have an independent nature, Garrett. Keep it about you as you go on this hunt. It may not be the kind of hunting you desire. It disgusts me, and I have seen a great deal of horrible things in my time. Keep your independence about you whenever you are near him, hold it tight, or you may not recognize the monster you eventually become. _

Shock crossed his face when I turned from him. "No," I rasped. "I cannot do that."

He used the other voice again. "Come back with me." Stronger this time

I finally understood what Mary had said. I took my sense of independence and…wrapped it around myself was the only way to describe it. I let it blanket my mind against his voice, and stepped slowly away from the house.

"Garrett!" William was upset now, frustrated. So he had some awareness of his power. That was something I did not know.

I turned back to him. "I will not hunt this way! It is an abomination! There is no pleasure in hunting this way. It isn't even a hunt, just cold blooded murder!" I felt as though my shouts filled the whole world around us.

He looked as if he was ready to fight. Then he stepped back, saddened, and returned to the house. I remained where I was. I could hear everything in the house, could picture it in my mind.

"Now, now, ladies, escape is truly pointless. I have your scent now." He spoke as though he was chiding a small child. "I wish to speak to you, so I need you to promise not to scream." He was speaking to the mother. I heard her scream, and then her sobs were muffled. "And you promised! Not very ladylike." He must have removed the gag and replaced it. "Now then, I won't promise not to kill you, but I will promise to make your deaths quick if you promise not to scream." His words were a lie. He was already stretching out their deaths.

"So then, Margaret, who is this little one?" His voice was almost soothing.

"Sarah," she whispered, but I heard her quite clearly.

"Sarah. What a lovely child. She has your eyes. And the boy? What was his name?"

"Charlie," she whispered again, and her crying became more pronounced.

"Sarah and Charlie. You have a lovely family, Margaret." He did not ask anymore questions, and there was silence.

The sobs grew more pronounced again, though I did not know why.

"Hello Sarah. You are very pretty, has anyone ever told you that?" So he spoke with the girl now.

"Hel…hello," she cried, and suddenly anger filled me, pushed back the horror and the revulsion.

"What sort of games do you and Charlie play?" William asked, and I moved like a cannon shot towards the house, rage blinding everything. The door wasn't fast enough, so I went straight through the window, spraying glass everywhere.

William lounged lazily in front of the women, huddled in the corner between the fireplace and the wall, terror and sadness and disgust on their faces. The girl began screaming again as I entered, but I had already grabbed William's body, and with all my newborn strength, I rolled over him and hurled him away from the women, not bothering to see where he landed. I turned back to them immediately, pulled off their gags, and was in the midst of untying the mother when William returned, grabbing me with his full force and launching both of us through the same shattered window I'd entered.

We stood in the yard, facing each other, when I loosened myself from him. I crouched and growled, in front of the house, protectively. He was faster than me, but not stronger, and he flitted back and forth, trying to get past me, but I put all my effort on staying between him and the house.

Finally, he pulled back out of his hunting stance, and spoke. I heard the mother, she had loosened herself and was carrying the daughter, quietly out of the hole in the wall that William's body had created when I'd thrown him. "Mary. Take care of them. Garrett and I have business to attend to."

Mary was already past me. I had not noticed her in our fight, was not using my senses for anything but stopping William.

"No!" I shouted, turning back to the house. It was the moment William needed, and he was upon me, through my defenses, and his arm hit me full in the chest, and I was flying away from the house.

I threw myself back at him, and I was not fighting to defend, but to kill. He ducked my blows and delivered blows of his own. His strength was nowhere near mine, and I braced against them. Our movements were quick. He had more training and speed, and I tried to match it with my strength. Suddenly his was inside my arms, and his teeth sank into my shoulder, the same shoulder where I had been shot, a lifetime ago. I felt pain for the first time since the burning, since the change. Then my arm slammed into him with full force, and he was hundreds of yards away, knocking over a tree and smashing its branches as he fell.

I moved back to the house, but it was over. Mary had broken the necks of the women and moved the bodies by the fireplace. She was moving delicately, lighting the left over piece of cloth from the sheet William had used to bind them on fire. She ignored me when I entered the house. She moved from window to window, igniting the curtains, igniting anything flammable she could find.

I stared at the women I had tried to save. I stood in the house of horror, surrounded by his massacre. By my massacre.

Mary grabbed my arm and pulled me from the house, which was quickly becoming a pyre, I followed without thinking. Even my new mind could not process what had happened.

I stopped when we were away from the flames, and stared at the inferno that was now blazing, the timbers of the walls and roof igniting easily. The smoke and flames were high in the night, and I was transfixed. I stepped forward. Mary gripped my arm, and a hand was on my other.

I turned toward him viciously.

Mary was between us immediately.

"No worries, Mary," his voice was calm now. "Just a fight between brothers. Happens all the time."

"Why!" I screamed.

"It is our only rule. They had to die after they had seen what we are." Mary's voice was a whisper, and I was reminded of the mother, of Margaret.

"Very well Garrett. I guess I'll be hunting alone." William had a smirk on his face again.

I turned and walked away. I could not look at them anymore. Then I was at a full run, straight west, towards the mountains.

I heard him, as I departed. He had mirth in his voice. "At least we know our venom doesn't kill us. I guess we're going to have to hunt savages for awhile."


	13. 11 UNBEARABLE 1783

11

**11. UNBEARABLE (1783)**

"NO!" I screamed.

I slammed into William with all the force of my leap, my momentum crashing us into the wall, brick and mortar shattering. My fist should have destroyed his face, crushing it to the wall. My knee thrust into his gut, as hard as iron, and my fist slammed him again. He was still dazed from losing his feed, and I took advantage, hitting him over and over again, putting all my strength into my blows before he could recover.

He was finally aware of what was happening, and he tried to move away from me, to gain distance and use is speed and skill, but I kept him between myself and the wall, so that he could not escape.

He was barely affected by my blows, though I heard his jaw and cheekbone crack, and a few ribs as well, so I used my only other weapon against him, and opened my mouth to rip him apart.

As I sank my teeth into his shoulder, tearing and shredded his body along his torso, raking his skin and muscle and sinew from his body until his flesh hung from him from his left arm to his right hip.

I breathed through my nose, my good sense lost in my blind rage, and the scent of Susan's blood hit me. It was the diversion he needed, and he moved away from me and the wall, his arms clutching his chest.

I was barely aware that Mary had found us, that she had tracked William's scent as I had. I felt her presence, but my focus was on two things, William and Susan. Her blood was irresistible, but my anger at William's actions helped me to focus.

"Using teeth now, are we?" he said, only malice in his voice, adjusting his jaw against his skull, and he bared his perfect teeth at me, moving again into his hunting crouch. His jaw was already healed.

We leapt at each other, colliding in mid-air, but I was stronger, and my momentum forced us away from Susan. We glanced off an alley wall, smashing it to bits, and then I was on top of him. His teeth gnashed at my body.

Mary didn't notice as she tried to get between us, so fast were his bites, and he caught her wrist in one of his lunges, tearing her hand from her body.

I leapt away from him, and realized his expression was the same as mine. We may have wanted to kill each other, but neither of us wanted to hurt Mary.

Her hand dangled from her body, held together by only small strands of flesh, and horror was all over her face at what we had done to her. I tried to move towards her, but she pulled away from me, in Susan's direction.

"Mary, I'm…so sorry," William said, his voice almost pleading.

"Get out of here," I urged. "He wants to kill her, and I won't allow it. We will have to kill each other."

"Take the girl if you can, Mary. I never intended to kill her, but the scent is too strong for me. And Garrett and I have unfinished business." He looked down at his chest. "No reason to have the scent distract us from the fight."

Mary looked at her hand, then back at us. I knew I could not wait much longer until I either went after William again or fed on Susan. I guessed that William's thoughts were the same. She looked at William and he nodded. He had used his persuasion, but that was not necessary given the sight in front of her. She pulled Susan up with her good arm, pulling her destroyed wrist to her body with the other, and left us without a word.

"A fair fight?" I asked. "This will be the most fun I've had in years."

"Very well," William replied, and I saw that his torn chest was already healing where the skin on the sides of the wound was touching. Remarkable. "Give me a moment."

He held the wound together for a moment, and it seemed to…fuse together. As if I was watching a cut heal at a speed that was impossible.

William smirked at me, and then he was upon me. It was time.

His speed matched my strength, but his skill gave him the advantage. Though every blow I struck affected him more, he was able to make more contact, keeping me at bay. We slashed and moved in a strange dance. I imagined it would be almost beautiful to an outside observer.

The alley was deteriorating into dust and brick and mortar as we fought, the walls around us crumbling. And then we did have an audience.

"Who goes there?" I didn't know if it was police or a bystander, but it did not matter when the distraction enabled William to scale the walls of the alley, four stories, to the roof. I ignored our audience and followed, hoping the darkness of the alley masked our supernatural feats.

As soon as my arm reached the ledge of the roof, William had it, and he pulled me over, breaking the arm in the process.

I let it hang next to me, limp, for it was my left, my bad arm. I gripped his shoulder with my right while he broke the left, and squeezed as hard as I could, until I heard his bones and flesh snapping.

He pushed me away, and we both roared. Lights were coming on around us now, the entire square was awakening from our battle.

We both looked around warily, then at each other.

"I only meant to change her for you," he said. "We don't need to kill each other." He was holding his shoulder, as if to refit it to his body.

"I think we do," I said. "But perhaps now is not the time." I looked at my left arm, twisted and broken. Thinking about William's chest earlier, I twisted my own arm, and immediately I felt the nerves and tendons and bones within begin to heal.

"She had…a family." I barely realized I was speaking my thoughts aloud. "A baby. Two daughters. A husband." How could he have done this monstrous thing to her?

"No matter," William replied. "She was a lesser being. But now she will be more." His shoulder looked as if it was healed. "You are my brother, and you desired her. You will forgive me. Mary, on the other hand…" His voice trailed off.

We had both healed, but I doubted the damage to Mary could heal. Still, it was remarkable, the quickness. I did not know that we could be wounded, but it seemed to barely matter.

Thinking of Mary made me think of Susan. My whole world had changed, and I did not know how. My future, hunting and feeding, was now completely different. What was it? I'd often thought of seeing Susan again, but having _her_ be one of _us_? William's monstrous nature had once again surprised me. He had ripped her from family and happiness. His selfishness knew no bounds.

I knew nothing of his mind. That he could forgive another fight, a far more dangerous one, yet rip Susan from her family, torture people with pleasure. What sort of devil was he? How could he care for me, for Mary, his "family", yet care nothing for humans? How could he have detached himself from his old life, old memories, old self, so deeply?

"Well then, shall we?" He looked satisfied that his arm was fine.

I glanced at him, confused.

"You want to be with Susan while she transforms, don't you?" He was actually smiling at me. "We may as well catch up to Mary. Once the transformation starts, it's much easier to be around the human." He turned in the direction of Mary's escape.

"We will finish this!" I spat

"Quickly now, Garrett. Our fight has raised the authorities. We had best get after her." He ignored my threat as if it meant nothing. He moved after Mary, assuming I would follow. I did not know what else I could do, so I complied.

We moved out of the alley, after her scent. The night was late now, and she had run through the streets rather than using the rooftops. Easier, with the body she carried and her wounded hand.

I was surprised when we reached the river. Was she trying to lose us? I looked at William, but he simply shrugged, moved back to the far end of the dock, and then sprinted across it towards the river, pushing off at the last second. Easily a thousand yards. I emulated his actions exactly, and was surprised that I made it. I cleared the broad river with nearly a hundred yards to spare. Newborn strength, I supposed, not completely lost.

He was by the river. He had not made it completely across, and his britches were wet. If I'd had any sense of humor at that moment, I would have emulated his smirk. He was moving along the docks, away from the river, and then his face looked at mine. When I was next to him, I caught the scents of Mary and Susan too. We turned after it, through the town on the east side of the river, Camden. Mary had moved straight east and south, following the direction of her leap across the river, not caring about the civilization around her.

We followed her trail, and I knew with the burden of the body we would catch her, despite her greater speed under normal circumstances. It was easy to ignore the scents of humanity in the town, so focused was I on the objective of our pursuit.

Outside Camden, we began hearing screams, and I recognized them to be human. They were Susan's. I was moving as fast as my muscles would allow, leaping rather than running.

We caught Mary in a field north of a small hamlet, five miles southeast of the river. Mary was crouched, away from Susan's screaming form, over her hand. Both she and Susan were soaked. They had not had even William's success. Susan's hair was matted against her face.

"We've had out our differences, Mary. At least for now. Can you forgive me?" William's voice was pleading, but Mary did not respond, did not move.

"Your…hand?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Another talent we have, apparently." She stood then, and held the destroyed hand in front of us. It was completely healed. "I held it against my wrist when I saw that my fingers were still moving. That is why I stopped. And it is as though nothing happened."

We were less human with each revelation this night.

"Garrett promises to be on his best behavior, and so do I." William was all nonchalance now, but I knew it was a facade, knew that what he had done to Mary hurt him. Our little family in pain was the only thing that could cause him pain.

Mary smiled at him. Would I ever understand the relationship between my vampire companions?

I did not care then, for Susan was screaming again. I moved toward her, and Mary crouched in front of me.

"He won't kill her Mary. He loves her. I'll find a place for us to stay while she changes. Let him comfort her." William was off before we could respond, moving to the town.

I stepped forward tentatively, concern for Susan my only priority. I neared Mary slowly, and she looked at my face, and then moved away.

The wound on Susan's neck was healed, the blood dried, so that only her scent was appealing to my other nature. Her body was writhing in agony, and her screams were unbearable. My hand moved slowly towards her face, touching it softly, as if it was a crystal vase from her old home. She was…delicate, like a flower that could easily be crushed.

I realized I had not breathed in a very long time, and I stepped back from her, putting Mary between us, and inhaled, purposefully.

Her scent was as lovely as before, but I placed the thought of her death at the forefront of my mind, and I could bear it. So there was one thing I could bear.

I moved back to her and took her hand, stopped it from jerking over her body. My cold skin could not comfort her, I knew.

She pulled away, and I tried to keep her hand in mine, and I heard her wrist break.

I sprung away in horror, and I was halfway across the field. Mary went to her and examined the break.

"You are new Garrett. I know it is hard to control yourself, but you must. You will ease her suffering, and be a comfort when she wakes. They are fragile creatures, and you must be careful." She was not angry. She was resigned.

William returned then. "Right. Follow me." Mary lifted Susan into her arms and followed, but I did not move. I stood in the field for what seemed hours, but was only minutes, until William was before me.

"She is calling your name between the screams," he said simply. It was enough, and I followed him back to the village.

It was a beautiful town, all cobblestone and street lamps, and we moved south down the king's highway of this place where Susan would change, this place called Haddonfield. We moved past a small establishment called the Indian King Tavern, a few houses down. I wondered briefly what William had done to procure the house, but thought better of my curiosity.

Mary had placed Susan in the master bedroom, and a piece of wood was in her mouth to muffle the screams. Mary had stoked the fire below, so that the heat in the bedroom was enough that Susan's wet clothes would not bother her. Susan's body shook and shuddered on the bed, but it was from pain. Any allure she might have had in her nightgown was lost in the agony of her face and her body.

Mary grabbed my arm before I could move beside the bed.

"Gently," she cautioned, but said no more.

The hours seemed to turn into days and weeks and years. Her pain did not cease, her screams, when she spit out the wooden bit, were excruciating. She would call my name through the screams, but it was little comfort. When her wrist healed, I was happy for only a moment, for her agony was my agony.

The passage of time could not be measured. I did not breathe. I did not speak. I only stared. I was aware of William and Mary on occasion, but there was nothing to discuss. I was capable of only one thing. Watching my beloved die.

I heard them occasionally, in the room. "Can you ever forgive me?" he asked once, though I could not be bothered to know if they were in the room or not.

"Perhaps. Our memories are long, but so is our life." I could not read in her voice whether she forgave him or not, but I guessed that she had.

I returned to my silent vigil.

"The three days are finally up." William spoke, and I was suddenly awake, for the first time in an eternity, and I was not alone with Susan.

"Her heart races, her blood boils. It is soon now." William placed his hand on my shoulder, as if it would help.

I listened to her heart, and it was different. But her body was still racked with pain, as if she were lying on a bed of hot coals. She had nearly thrown herself from the bed more than once, but Mary was always there, aware. She did have a talent for this, whether or not she wanted to admit it. She and William had covered the room in cloth, so that Susan's screams could not be heard from the outside.

"The fire moves towards her heart," Mary said quietly, and I saw that Susan's hands and feet no longer jerked with the rest of her body.

"Take her hand. Comfort her," William urged, and I moved my hand slowly towards hers, touching it tentatively. It was not cold, nor was it warm like the rest of her body. And it was not delicate, just soft beneath my skin. I moved forward, kneeling beside the bed, and pressed her hand between both of mine.

Her intoxicating scent was changing, still alluring, but not appetizing, sweet now, but not in a way that I wanted to taste. William smelled of roses and perfume. Mary smelled of a wildflower I bloom. I smelled like the deepest part of the forest at night. Susan smelled like…wild daisies in an open meadow.

Her heart pumped so fast now that I could hear nothing else, and I was reminded of the thudding of my own heart during my transformation.

"Garrett!" she screamed, and it pierced my heart

The thudding slowed to a crawl, and then stopped.

I pulled her hand to my cheek, pressed it against my face, and she opened her eyes.

Then the wall was shuddering at my back, ready to break from the stress. She had thrown me across the room, and pinned me against the wall. I did not respond to her attack.

Susan looked at me, her eyes no longer green, but bright red, her hand to my throat. I made my body go limp, and stared at her. Mary and William were crouched behind us, waiting.

My eyes were only for Susan. Her hand clutched my throat, holding me against the wall, and she was stronger than me. I concentrated on my expression, to make it as human as possible. She stared at me with hate, and then recognition.

"Garrett?" she asked.

I had no breath, so I simply nodded against her hand.

She released me and stepped away.

"What have you done to me?"


	14. 12 OVER THERE 1918

Author's Note #1: If you, dear reader, hated the initial form of the last chapter, I'm not surprised, because I hated it too

_Author's Note #1: If you, dear reader, hated the initial form of the last chapter, I'm not surprised, because I hated it too. It was poorly written and completely derivative of the climax of __Eclipse__. William's reaction to losing his arm was completely ridiculous. In theory, it was important to have the symmetry of William and Garrett fighting in two consecutive chapters. In reality, vampire versus vampire action for two straight chapters is boring to write (though fun to read). In short: I got lazy. I have rewritten the chapter. You need not reread it, as the gist of the action (William and Garrett fight and discover vampires can reassemble themselves, Susan transforms) is the same. However, the fight, the lost body part and who lost it, and everyone's character is different in the first half (though most of the second half is the same). The old chapter has disappeared onto my computer for eternity. But for those who are already reading, as kind as you have all been, I felt I owed you an explanation and an apology, and this is it, along with a new chapter._

_Author's Note #2: The nature of the chapter to chapter time jumps is very different from now on. My only explanation is that it's more effective for the story, and I'm obsessed with __Lost__._

**12. OVER THERE (1918)**

Hmm. Germans didn't taste any better on this side of the Atlantic than they did on the other. Not that they tasted bad, per se. Their blood was very metallic, not particularly sweet. I wondered what the French would taste like.

No, they were allies. The British too. Though they were a tad more tempting. Old grudges were hard to forget.

Time to get back to my own side of No Man's Land, I supposed. Thinning the ranks of German troops was fun and all, but being with other soldiers was as much a part of this endeavor as anything else. It was amazing how much I'd missed life in the army until I'd finally been able to return.

Of course I'd fought in every American war since the Revolution, but this was different. I could actually be a soldier. Perhaps the dirtiest soldier in my whole division, but a soldier nonetheless. After all, we spent most of our time behind mounds of dirt, even lived in dirt holes. And the artillery that was constantly firing gave the sky a gray shadow of smoke and dust. The sun did not come out here very often. It was a rather nice way to live, with no sun. Less time to be with my thoughts. That was certainly not a place I wanted to be.

The artillery shell burst right next to me. I was blown back from the body I'd just finished. I loved the pain. My body and mind savored it again. This war was the first time I'd felt it without another vampire around. I liked that I'd found a new way to feel pain besides my own species, even if this was not as great a challenge.

Yes, this new type of warfare was fun in so many ways. It was actually dangerous, even for me.

I looked down at my stomach. The explosion of the shell had been hot enough to get through the skin, to dig a hole in my gut. Peculiar, it was almost the exact spot where I'd taken the bayonet, over a century before. But this wound wouldn't kill, though that one would have. Or, perhaps, did.

Time to get back across, I realized, as the skies lightened from a new dawn. My commanding officer already trusted me little, and why should he? I had come to the unit with stolen papers and a name I did not know, and I never responded to. Every time he called the name Willis, I barely noticed. I was not used to having a fake name. And, of course, there was my lust for the fight.

I'd had to kill an American doughboy to enter this fray, and for that I felt very guilty, more so every day as I got to know my new compatriots. With a few million American men now entered in the fight, it was far harder for officers to keep track of the comings and goings of individual soldiers. But my hair was long, my body was always dirty – or at least my face, neck, and hands after a few minutes of covering up each morning – and I fought with a reckless abandon that none of the other soldiers demonstrated. I should be dead already, and he knew it.

I returned from No Man's Land and across our trench line far too quickly and quietly for anyone to notice, and was back under my blanket before our company was roused, feigning sleep. We had an important day ahead of us.

A new offensive was underway, and the AEF had an important part to play, for perhaps the first time in this war. The Germans held a train depot and the nearby town of Verdun, and we were to push them back, to cut off the supplies they received from the train.

I pretended I did not hear Anthony when he spoke my fake name. "Willis. Time to get up. We're going across the line today!"

He was scared, not excited, and the exclamation in his voice was for the danger. I couldn't blame him. This war was dangerous for me. For him, it could be a death sentence. I felt guilty for a moment, that I knew I wouldn't die, but I hoped my bravado was helpful. He would not flee, so he might as well have my genuine high spirits.

"Hell yeah we are!" I said, and opened my eyes, grinning widely. My enthusiasm did not have the effect that I hoped it would.

"Are you crazy?" Anthony asked. "Do you want to die?"

"I want some action. I want to kill Germans. If dying is part of that, then all the more reason to have some fun. We only live once." Even if that once was forever for me. And yes, I did want to die.

I pulled off my blanket, and Anthony jerked. Dammit, I'd forgotten the wound had ripped through my clothes.

"What happened? There's blood on that tear," he asked.

"Nothing. Just ripped my uniform on some barbed wire." I looked down at my shirt. How I missed my old jacket. Could I ever find anything to replace it? "Time to kill someone." I wanted to be away from the subject.

We were going over the trenches and No Man's Land today, following new contraptions called tanks that were supposed to help. A lot of Americans were going to die. Maybe I could lessen that number a little.

As we lined up in formation, I thought about how strange it was, to straddle the line between vampire and human. The scent was almost nothing, there were so many other scents in the air, though the blood of the wounded made it difficult, and I occasionally lapsed. I stayed away from infirmaries and held my breath around fallen brothers as much as possible, though I doubted I would be called a brother were any of my unit to find out the truth about me.

I had to move quickly when in battle. I could not allow my fellow soldiers to know when I was hit by the German bullets, and a few times it was impossible not to move ahead of the line and take out a few Germans before the rest actually reached the lines. I could have destroyed most of them, but I always kept Mary's rule in my head, cautious that I might reveal my true nature.

The weather was still like summer here in September, much like Philadelphia. The cold was nowhere near approaching, even without the sun to warm things up. The sun was effective despite the haze of constant artillery.

I loved the artillery. It burned hot, it could kill me. It was…dangerous. The only dangerous thing I'd ever found besides other vampires. Nothing would ever match the danger of others of my species, but it was refreshing to be in danger, and to have a cause to put myself in front of it. I would return to fighting my own kind when this was over, but I was glad for a new challenge. My favorite pastime in this war was to throw myself in front of other Americans when artillery would land, just to feel the effects. I couldn't fight it, but I could stop it.

"Are you ready for this?" William asked. No, not William, Anthony. I shuddered at my strange thought, that I could link Anthony to my torment, could remember a time when the relationship between William and I had been so different.

"I can't wait!" I said, and smirked at him. William rubbed off on me in a few ways at least. I hadn't learned to smirk until my new life. Or perhaps this was the fourth life? Perhaps I was catlike in more than my agility?

Anthony only looked at me, and I saw in his eyes my own, the eyes of a madman.

_It's not about the kill_, I thought, _it's about the fight_. My new refrain. My new life. I barely enjoyed the taste of the blood anymore. It was how I got to the blood now that mattered. I didn't even care if it was blood, as long as I had an objective, an objective that could kill me in its pursuit. A good fight was all I wanted, and it was all that excited me. I was incapable of anything besides destruction, but I felt excitement when that destruction could destroy me as well. Excitement was my favorite emotion.

The battle was unending for my brothers after it began. I remembered the old days, when a battle was fought in a few days. Now, battles were fought over months, and a few yards gained were great victories. Were my purpose the same as before, when my desire was to win above all else, to ensure our freedom, I might have felt remorse. But I wanted the battle to continue, and it was very obliging.

Anthony died on October 16, 1918. I had crossed the lines and was weakening the German defense. I never touched the artillery, for it was too far from the lines, and because I enjoyed the threat of it, and it was the artillery that killed him. I found his body as I returned. The blood was dried and no longer flowing. He was trapped in barbed wire, the back of his coat caught when he'd tried to crawl underneath. The Germans had shot him in the back and the head, though it was the shrapnel from a shell that had thrown him into the fence.

I ripped the wire away and hefted him quickly over my shoulder, back towards our line of defense. I did not look at his face. I enjoyed interacting with the soldiers when they were alive, but I had seen far too much death now. My relationships were always superficial, part of the fun.

As soon as we were across the defense line, I laid his body on the ground and returned to the fight. Someone would find him soon, and his body would be taken care of. I removed my helmet, a foolish looking thing, and nodded once to my fallen brother. I had death to attend to.

Our advance was slow. I carried many others back from the lines, some of whom would recover, some of whom would not.

I was reorganized into the first army, intent on taking the train depot, when our losses became too heavy. My brothers became disillusioned with the war, as so many had, as the losses mounted with each day, with each foot we gained. Was one foot of ground worth so much blood? Not to them, I was sure. They understood the reluctance of the British and the French, even if I did not.

I did not like to ponder where I would go when this war was over. Staying in the moment was my only objective.

Our advance to the train depot lasted to the end of the war. I was shocked when I heard the news of armistice, and dismayed when the armistice lasted. I had nowhere else to go. I did not want to return to America. I did not want to keep fighting my own kind.

If I was capable of crying, I would have done so on November the eleventh of 1918. I'd had a purpose, if only for a short time, but I'd lost it now.

Thank God I met Daniel.


	15. 13 TRANSFORMED 1783

13

**13. TRANSFORMED (1783)**

"I can see…everything. Hear it, taste it, smell it," Susan said quietly. Her face was puzzled. Perhaps she did not recognize her own voice.

Suddenly, her expression was frantic. "My throat!"

"Do everything that I do! Follow me quickly and I will ease your pain." William did not look back as he turned out the door and down the stairs.

Susan looked at me for the briefest of seconds, but her hands reached her own throat, and she followed him without further hesitation.

I looked at Mary. She was…sad. Then I followed as well. Susan needed my help, and I did not trust William not to massacre the entire village. We still had a score to settle.

I tracked their scent down the main road. The evening was late now, and no one was on the streets. They had moved towards the center of town, where the population was highest. I doubted I could catch them, with William's speed and her newborn strength, but I had to try. She could not have her first kill be a slaughter. It might change her forever. So I was shocked when I caught them.

"Smell it," William was saying as I approached. They were hidden in the shadows under the eave of a storefront. "Your senses will tell you what to do. Trust them above all else. When your prey is close, your body will react, and you will know what to do."

Susan was looking around the street, and I realized that she was testing her new, enhanced, senses. Then she crouched, and she was on the hunt.

I moved to leap after, but William caught my arm. "Don't interfere. She can do this by herself. We all can." I looked at him, then shook off his arm and followed her.

She was already feeding when I found her, had already made her first kill, a policeman on patrol. She looked up at me as I approached, and made a hissing sound while continuing to feed on his neck. The sound gurgled with the blood she drank. It should have been horrible.

I attempted to make my stance as harmless as possible, very difficult with blood in the air, though the blood was disappearing fast. I spread my arms, hands open, and approached slowly, at human speed, while she finished her kill. Her eyes shone bright red. That beautiful green they had once been, it's own unique shade, was now gone forever.

I stopped a few feet away, wondering how she would react to what she had done. She finished quietly, then let the body drop, before rising to stand in front of me. "Not enough," she said, and her hands closed to her throat once again. She stood as she had with William for a moment, letting her senses drift around her, and then she was off again.

"So, who buries the body, and who takes care of the next one?" William asked, moving beside me after she'd gone.

I didn't move. I didn't speak.

"Garrett?"

"I'll take care of it. You find her. You are better suited for this than I am," I finally said. I could not even describe the wave of emotions hitting me. I needed to prepare myself for this new, transformed, version of Susan. And possibly a different version of myself.

William raced after her, and I moved to the body, lifted it easily, and carried it to the nearby park. The grave was shallow, but it would suffice.

Would I watch Susan kill again? I wanted to. I finally understood a little of the enjoyment William found in this new life. Watching her kill had been…sexy. I wanted that feeling again, if she would have me.

Mary and I waited in the common area of the house where Susan had died and been reborn. I thought she noticed the new look in my eyes. Mary was extremely perceptive, and I knew that everything about me was different now. She had to see that, too. She wanted to ask questions, but I simply sat in the chair beside the fire, ignoring the curiosity in her eyes.

It took longer than I thought, nearly two hours, before they finally arrived. When they returned, Susan was disheveled. Blood was still around her mouth and on her night gown, which had torn in several places.

"You have questions?" I said, rising to meet them as they entered the house

"William has explained some." Her voice was incredibly beautiful, more like song than speech. "He told me that I am a vampire." I could not read her new eyes. They were so bright and different. She had undergone many changes, the tan of her skin and the freckles on her face gone, her body white and hard as stone. She was more exquisite now than in my memories, old and new. But the eyes were the most jarring change, the hardest to adapt to.

"What does that mean, exactly?" she asked. I deferred to Mary to respond, for she was the oldest of us all.

"It means that you are an immortal. Death is no longer in your future," Mary spoke. "That you will crave human blood above all else, and that your body has become frozen as it is for eternity."

I knew the rest, so I returned to the chair and pondered Susan again. She reacted most strongly to the fact that we did not sleep at all. Our appearance in daylight she did not understand, and even Mary could not explain adequately. I don't think anyone could. I simply stared at her, not knowing what to say, and allowed William to fit any pieces that Mary left out.

Whenever she moved, she revealed some of the body underneath the gown. I could barely contain my reactions to these glimpses. Even the blood did not sing for me the way she did. I craved her more than anything else I had ever known. I almost laughed as I thought of my old yearnings for her. They were nothing compared to this. She was perfection, a living embodiment of the Aphrodite. Well, not living, but moving

"My…children?" Susan asked when they finished with the details. I did not know how to respond to that, though I had thought about it for three days.

"Your husband will care for them now. He is rich, it seems. I'm sure he will find a new wife now that the old has disappeared to take car of them." As always, William's response was cold and emotionless about human affairs.

"But if I wish to see them?" Her face was pained now.

"I would not advise that until you have trained yourself against the scent. I waited three years to see my family, and I still wasn't able to stop myself. I doubt you want that." There was no remorse in his voice for what he had done. There never was.

"Garrett." Susan spoke my name. I was already staring at her, but I had not entered the conversation. "Why?" was her only question for me.

I rose from the chair then and stepped toward her. William tried to answer for me. "He did not. It was I. he missed you terr-"

"Even this new life is not a life without you, love," I cut him off. "Not a day or a moment goes by when I don't want you beside me. We are a matched pair, you and I, as vampires or as humans." I grinned at her. I did not know what to expect in response.

And then she was on me, up close against my body, and we were kissing more passionately than we ever had in our human days. Becoming a vampire could not take away _this_ experience. Her body curved to mine, and I lifted her so our heights were even, clutching under her arms, my hands on the back of her neck. We kissed lip to lip, I barely noticed the dried blood around her mouthand on her tongue. I enjoyed that it was there, making this embrace impossibly appealing, my tongue tasting it occasionally, until it was nearly gone. My lips caressed her face, her jaw, her neck. She was smoother and softer than I expected, not the cold stone I feared. I kissed her ear tenderly, and her body responded, pulling even closer, though I had not thought that possible.

William made a noise, but I ignored it, and turned her out of the room and up the stairs of the house, carried her to the bedroom as far away from where she had died as possible. I noticed briefly that Mary had cleaned that room while we were gone, removed the sheets, but it was not an appropriate place for this. Despite my urgency to be with her wholly, I would not have this moment be in that place.

The bed was smaller in this room, but it did not matter. We could use the floor for all I cared. I pulled her on top of me, so that she was fully contained by my body, away from the bed, feeling only me. I wrapped her in my arms, so that I could embrace as much of her body as was possible, so that every curve of her figure was now permanently a part of my mind, and I would remember it forever.

She pulled up, away from me. I tried to stop her, but she was stronger. She knelt on the bed and I was looking up at her while she straddled my hips. In a swift motion, she removed her night gown, and I gazed at her naked body. I reacted with even more immediacy than I was prepared for, and she was helping me tear my own clothes away from me, and we were flesh on flesh.

Our two beings became one, as they would be for all of time, one being in two bodies.

When I came to the first time, I saw the tatters of our clothes, and of the bedding, and even of the room around us, with damaged walls, the bed destroyed and simply a mattress now. I was briefly happy that I'd left my jacket in the common room. I loved that jacket. Then she moved against me, I felt her body writhe slightly against mine, and I forgot anything else in the world existed once more.

XXX

I had no idea how long we remained in that room, but I never wanted to leave, not ever. When we made love, I had no awareness of anything outside of our bodies. I thought we might have actually gone through a wall and into another bedroom during one particularly intense moment of joy, but it didn't really matter. Beds made little difference, and we used them only partially.

It was only when my eyes darkened a shade from the normal deep crimson, and her thirst began to burn her throat, that we finally broke from the spell. Someone had left clothes for us in the hall, a lovely yellow dress for Susan and a shirt, britches, and boots for me, along with my beloved jacket. I doubted William would be so considerate.

"I believe it is time for you to discover more about your new life," I said as we finished dressing.

"If we can have more of this, that's all I need to know," Susan responded, and her grin was as wide as mine.

"We're going to take this world by storm, love. We have everything we could need, now that we have each other." For the first time in ages, since I died I Yorktown, I saw the future clearly. We were perfectly matched in every way. Her desires would be mine. We would turn the whole world upside down.

Mary and William waited for us downstairs. William was grinning nearly as widely as we were. Mary was the only person in the room who did not look as if perfection was suddenly our state of being.

"Is it always like this?" I asked Mary. "It's as if we were made for each other."

"It's called mating. When we find our true companion, we are forever linked to that person. Nothing can break the bond." She looked at William as she said the last.

Susan and William were looking at each other, and his grin broke even wider, if possible, at Mary's words. "Nearly brought down the house up there. I swear the foundations shuddered," William laughed, and I simply turned from him and smiled at Susan

"I'm surprised we didn't," I replied, and then I was kissing her again, and the world disappeared once more.

"Now, now, my overeager friends, we have work to do." I pulled away from our kiss, since I knew Susan was thirsty.

"No hard feelings?" William asked, looking at me expectantly.

"No," I said, my excitement nearly bursting.

"No more scavenging in the woods, I hope."

"Everything is different now," I replied. "We have a new world to create."


	16. INTERLUDE 2

INTERLUDE 2 (2006)

**INTERLUDE 2**

I watched in shock as the Volturi attacked Irina, as Caius lit her body on fire. They were exactly as I'd thought, as many in our company expected. They were not here for justice. They were here for conquest.

"Stop them!" Edward yelled, grabbing Tanya, and I saw Carlisle clutching her to him, and finally realized the plan, the danger. I should have considered Katie and Tanya's reaction, but Irina's death shocked me.

"It's too late to help her. Don't give him what he wants!" Carlisle spoke urgently to Tanya, but she was no longer the danger.

It was not a hiss or a growl that emanated from Katie, but a shriek of pain and anger. She moved forward to attack.

The beautiful blond, Rosalie, was smarter than me, realized the problem immediately, and tried to hold Katie back, but Katie's power threw her off. The big one, Emmett, grabbed Katie's arm, but even his strength was no match for her electric skin.

My woman was too strong for anyone but me. I had felt it before, her amazing gift. It was how she'd broken my defenses, made me see her clearly. The first time I'd seen anyone clearly in over a century. If I concentrated, I could take it. Katie might be hurt or even killed if I didn't. Hell, we might all die if I wasn't strong enough.

And if she killed me? Well, I would rather die than have her in harm's way. I already longed for death anyway.

I flung myself at her, only one thought in my head besides helping Katie.

_This is going to hurt._


	17. 14 WANDERERS 1920

13

**14. WANDERERS (1920)**

This was the longest I had ever been away from America. I'd spent the year and a half of the war in France, and then simply lost myself in Europe after that. The war had been fun, but now I had no purpose, no future.

I travelled through the war torn countryside, the wreckage of eastern France, the poverty of a German country ruined by war. They had lost all of their sons, these people, an entire generation of men who would not work and contribute and be the future for their country. Germany had no future, just like me. It was comfortable the presence of misery. The Germans understood me. Even if I did not speak to them/

I fed randomly, finding no joy in it as I once had. This entire situation would have been fun for us in the past, when our coven was still together. We would have enjoyed the lawlessness and the wildness, the freedom to do what we wished without any fear of being found out. Yes, our coven would have had a wondrous time in post-war Europe. I tried to stop thinking of it in a possessive way. It was my coven no longer.

It was in Ireland where I was finally woken from my depression. The Irish had decided to fight their own war of independence against the British, and I couldn't help but be intrigued. I swam the Channel to England, then crossed Britain and swam the Irish Sea from Liverpool. I could have used more traditional means, but I wished very much to be alone, and the thought of trapping myself in a boat with humans for hours on end had little appeal, except as it might lead to a massacre.

I arrived in Dublin early in 1920, while the Irish Republican Army was still raiding anything British that it could find, but before both the British and Irish escalated their efforts. I immediately liked the city and the people.

Dublin was low and squat, none of the buildings more than a few stories. The people were rowdy and aggressive, finally exploding against years of oppression. If I was honest, their oppression was far worse than our own had been, nearly a century and a half earlier. It was simply far easier for the British to crush them, they were much closer at hand.

I was almost disappointed in America for not helping these people, but I supposed the British were now our friends, that a century of peace between our countries had quashed the old hostility. My vampire nature was harder to change. It had only changed twice that I knew of.

So I filled in for my absent countrymen, assisting the IRA in their efforts to rid themselves of centuries of tyranny. I destroyed entire British garrisons on occasion. I soon learned that I did not need to clean up after myself, for the IRA would always take the credit, even when the act had not been theirs. I briefly considered joining them fully, but my mind was not quite prepared for that type of close interaction, so I simply admired the actions of Michael Collins and his men from afar and did what I could.

When the British declared martial law on the island, I moved to the country outside of the city. It was an astonishingly beautiful place. How this island could have been inhabited for so long, and yet be covered in rolling fields of emerald green with only the barest hint of human habitation, was beyond me. So I ranged further west, and the island took my breath away.

I might have returned to Dublin, or gone north to Belfast, when I encountered Daniel.

I had ranged west and north from Galway to Mayo, enjoying the openness of the countryside. I had not fed in nearly a week, and was simply enjoying running through the land, feeling the wind through my hair, which blew behind me unfettered, and savoring the smells around me. I could hear everything in close proximity, the sheep out to pasture, small animals I barely noticed. I let my senses take me, and my mind was at peace, when the sweet smell of my own kind suddenly hit me, and I ceased running, stock still on a hillside overlooking the Atlantic.

I had not smelled my own kind in years, though I was sure there were some others of us present during the war, a bloodbath too wonderful to resist. The scent shocked me almost to my core, it had been so long. It was similar to mine, a woodsy smell, no, just a natural smell. A smell very much like the open country, grass and salt and sea. A good smell for one of my kind. I suddenly very much wanted to meet this vampire, so I simply waited, letting him come to me.

He approached quickly and confidently from the north, over the hills above the sea. He was not afraid of this encounter, was not wary of me. My past experiences told me I should always be wary of other vampires, but in the moment I didn't care. If he wanted to kill me, let him try. I welcomed death anyway.

When he was fifty yards away, he stopped, and we appraised one another. His hair was dark with a hint of red. He wore a smirk on his face, not necessarily a smile. His height was average, half a foot shorter than me. His clothes were plain, a white shirt with no collar, tucked into brown pants, suspenders holding them up, scuffed shoes on his feet. His build was thick, almost squat, but not fat, and I knew his strength would be his best weapon.

His head was cocked curiously when he spoke. "A Yank, eh?"

I looked down at myself. I had not bothered to remove my uniform in the last three years, and I still looked like a doughboy.

"A Mick, yes?" I called back. I smiled as I said it, hoping he would not take offense. I'd met more than a few Irish, some of whom reacted worse to the word than others. He grinned back, and we approached each other.

He stuck out his hand when we were near, and I was happy to shake it. "Daniel's the name, and these parts are me territory. I smelled yeh a few miles away, and thought yeh might be lost. 'Aven't met none of our kind 'ere in quite some time. It's… refreshing. Nice ter meet you." His brogue was thick, thicker than the Irish I'd met in the States. I had to think about each word as he said it to understand, which took but a second with my vampire mind.

"I am Garrett, from Philadelphia by way of the war in France, as you've no doubt guessed."

"Yeah? 'Ow was that anyway? Thought about going over meself, only I didn't want no one staking me claim." He looked around as he said this, and I could not blame him. This land was heartbreakingly lovely.

"The most fun I've had in years," I replied honestly.

"Well then, shall we take a run, and yeh can tell me all 'bou 'tit? I 'aven't 'ad a good run against a vampire in too long. Like ter see if I've lost me step."

I barked a laugh, and then took off without a word, and we were running.

XXX

He lit a fire that evening. Though it was unnecessary, he enjoyed the warmth of it, and I agreed with him. It did feel nice.

Danny, as he preferred, was incredibly open. He had been a vampire only a few decades, and he had encountered few other vampires. He seemed to very much want to tell his tales.

I had described the war in detail during our run, but I had little desire to further broach the subject of my past, so I let him speak.

His creator was named Jonathan, an English vampire, centuries old, who had bored of the life of solitude, just as Mary had with William. Danny was homeless in Dublin then, a wayward eighteen year old in 1870's Ireland trying to find work to pay passage to America. Mayo was his home, but he had too many older siblings to hope for anything but a small piece of farmland.

"I was a nasty vagrant, to be sure, and why 'e picked, I can't tell yeh. Lonely, I'd guess," he was smiling at the thought of the old life. Danny liked to smile, as I used to.

"We travelled in Ireland and Britain and Europe fer decades. Jonathan knew many things, 'ad met many vampires, 'ad seen much in his time. 'E was a good teacher. But our relationship wern't close. 'E would leave often once I wern't a newborn. I suppose that 'e missed the solitude, now that 'e 'ad none. I 'aven't seen 'im in six years. I figure 'e went ter the war, same's you. Don't know if 'e's comin' back. Longest 'e's ever been gone." Danny's face turned to a grimace. He was lonely. Which explained how open he was.

"So I've been 'ere, in my little territory. I don't kill often. Not a lot of folks around fer that. Go ter Dublin occasionally, but it's dangerous. There's other vampires, a group of 'em, and Ireland's their territory, most times. They don't bother me much 'ere. Barely know I exist. Met 'em once, with Jonathan. Big woman named Siobhan, taller than any woman yev ever seen, and 'er mate Liam. Jonathan thought might'er added a new one, another woman, but I never met 'er." So there were others. I wasn't sure how many I really wanted to meet.

"Been doin' all the talkin', 'aven't I?" he asked pleasantly. "What of you, Garrett, Yank in me Irish court?" Danny was without a doubt the friendliest vampire I'd ever encountered. I thought that I might have been like him, had my situation not been so different from the beginning.

"Not much to tell, really. I was a soldier in the American Revolution," I started, and his grin widened, and I thought I heard the words "Damned Brits."

"I took a bayonet at the end of the war, and a vampire named Mary turned me in the hospital before I died. I think that she was lonely too," I lied.

"We travelled together for over a century, had our fun. We had a few others with us sometimes. I never forgot how much I enjoyed fighting the war, so I kept returning to it. I've fought in every war America has entered, except the Spanish and Philippines. This is the first time I've left North America for a war. Mary and I parted ways a few decades ago, and I've wandered by myself since. When the US entered the war, I took a ship across the Atlantic, stole a soldier's identity, and helped out the cause. I've been a little lost since it ended." Might as well add a bit of truth to the lies.

"That's it?" Danny asked. "I thought yeh Yanks were supposed ter be crazy?"

I thought for a moment. After all, I was a madman at this point. I had been before, too. I liked Danny, and I felt that, despite all I held back, I wanted him to know me. "Well, there's more to it than that. Did Jonathan ever tell you about the southern wars, the newborn armies?"

"Yeah, said it was one of the worst times in the last years fer our kind. Bad stuff."

"Well, the ones that were creating the vampires were awful. The newborns were simply out of control. Have you ever fought another vampire, Danny?" I was trying to be cautious.

"Never 'ad the need," he replied, but curiosity burned in his eyes.

"It's the most fun I've ever had," I lied, though this was not far from the truth. "To actually fear I might be destroyed. You have not lived until you've been on the brink of death in this life." I grinned at him, and his curiosity nearly had him bursting.

"What's so great 'bou 'tit?" he asked.

"It's the greatest hunt you can possibly imagine. It hones your skills and senses. But, most of all, it's fun."

He looked at me doubtfully. "Jonathan and I were in that scrape with the Children of the Moon when I was pretty young. That was fun fer awhile, but I don't know if I'd want ter do it again."

"I'm sorry, Children of the Moon?" I asked. What the devil was he talking about?

"Yeh know, werewolves?"

Gone was my misery, my depression. My mind was filled with nothing but possibilities.


	18. 15 HUNTING 1814

15

_Author's Note: If this story seems to meander a bit for the next few chapters, it's because I didn't want to simply skip huge chunks of time in Garrett's 225 year life as a vampire. The story has a definitive plot, but I felt the need in the previous chapter and the upcoming chapters to introduce a few elements and smaller stories to forward Garrett's character that don't necessarily forward the coven story or hurry toward the __Breaking Dawn__ climax. Please be patient, I do know where I'm going (I actually outlined every chapter until the end before I wrote this one). Thanks, and enjoy._

**15. HUNTING (1814)**

"I don't know if that's the best idea," William said as he entered the washroom.

I held the blade to my neck, just a second from starting, and looked at him curiously. "Susan would prefer it."

"It will never come back, once you remove it. You'll never grow it again, for the rest of eternity, so Mary says. What if Susan decides later that she misses it?"

"I can deny her nothing," I replied, and brought the blade back to my face.

"Very well," William smirked, and I saw his eyes roll.

It would certainly be annoying if vampire hair was as indestructible as vampire skin. I returned the blade to my neck, still warm from the hot water and lather, and slowly pulled it across my skin. The hair came away easily, just as it would have had I been human. With my speed and reflexes, my scruffy beard was gone in seconds, and I washed away the remaining hair with the warm water of the basin.

I wouldn't miss it, not even for a moment. Susan had asked that I remove it, for it was an encumbrance when we kissed, wherever that kiss may have been. I was surprised that she had waited so long to ask me. Perhaps she thought I was attached to it.

I pulled my hair back in a loose tail. I was glad she had not asked me to cut that as well. I enjoyed the feel of my hair behind me when I ran. The beard was simply an affectation of my old life, and I no longer needed reminders of that, not with her at my side.

I pulled my jacket, almost a companion to me as much as William and Mary, over my shoulders and joined our coven in the common room of the brownstone we now inhabited, thanks to William's most recent prey. They had been a wealthy family, the daughter and son-in-law of some ambassador to a far off land I would probably never see.

"The British are approaching, and the Americans have not mounted a defense, they plan to burn the capital in retaliation for what the Americans did at York," William was saying as I entered. He no longer thought of himself as an American, though I had never lost the feeling of patriotism. I was actually glad I could enjoy the blood of British soldiers tonight.

"Once the burning starts, the city will panic, and we can do whatever wish," William finished, a twinkle in his eye at the thought of unrestricted mayhem. I knew that I had the same twinkle in my eye, though our prey would be very different.

"Susan and I will enjoy one of the trapped families, and we all know where Garrett will be. Mary, I suppose you'll have your fill and be done with it," William said, as he moved on to the planning stages of this new hunt. I cringed at the sudden addition of Susan to his plans, but I had consented, after all.

Mary had grown increasingly more reclusive since William had turned Susan. She rarely interacted with us during the hunt. I felt sorry for her. She was often uninterested in the actions of our coven. Over the years, I had guessed that whatever feelings she had for William were unrequited. I knew she loved him early on, but William loved only the kill, now more than ever, and she still disliked his method of hunting. Well, torture was the more adequate word.

Susan's newborn year was easy. I accompanied her on every hunt, for she only sought to quench the need that burned in her. I was happy to change my hunting patterns to suit her, to simply attack a few mortals when the scent aroused her. Our passion after those moments was too joyous to describe. I watched her kill, and my body, human and inhuman, was affected so strongly that I could not contain myself. And she was the same. We often made love then and there, sometimes before I removed the evidence of our kill. My girl was passionate in everything, and the bloodlust made her crave me. Many a home did not need to be burned, the evidence already gone. We had, on occasion, destroyed entire forests after a kill.

She was strangely unaffected by her old life and old memories. Like William, she accepted and enjoyed the new life easily. I hoped this was because of the love that we shared, but accepted that she enjoyed the pleasure of the kill, too. Very much. When she finally overcame her newborn hunger, she became curious about other methods of killing. I showed her my way, prolonging the hunt I so enjoyed, which made the prey both inconsequential and more desirable once I finally attained it, but that suited her no better than our indiscriminate killings in the first year.

When she expressed her dissatisfaction to William, about ten years after he turned her, things got ugly.

"I'll take you with me then, as long as you can contain yourself." He seemed very happy that she expressed interest. I had told William many times not to discuss his method of killing with her, and had only given her glimpses myself of what I had seen, but apparently he felt that her asking him was enough to divulge everything.

"Is that the best course, William?" I asked, trying to contain myself. "It did not go so well for me." I wanted to rip him limb from limb for even suggesting it, but I was trying to make peace.

"She may enjoy it as I do Garrett. No harm in giving her the chance," he shrugged, as if he was asking very little.

"I agree with Garrett," Mary added, "Perhaps in a few years, when she is more adept, but not so early.' Mary had a very cautious look on her face.

"But I want to go!" Susan was very excited at the prospect of a new way of hunting. I remembered my own excitement when William had suggested it to me in my first years, but foremost in my mind was the horror of seeing it, and the near destruction that had followed.

"Wait, Susan. For me. Give us a few years before you follow this path. It is horrific." I did not care if I offended him. I waited, peering into that eyes, until she finally nodded her assent.

I pulled William aside after Mary offered to take Susan hunting with her. Mary was amazing when it came to understanding my moods, and she knew that William and I needed a private moment.

"I held myself in check for her, William, but I will not subject her to that. She is too beautiful for your horrors. I will finish our fight from before if you persist on this path. I will find a way to destroy you." I hoped he saw the depth of my seriousness in my eyes.

"She asked me, Garrett. If she truly wants to try, you will eventually have to let her. As you always say, you can deny her nothing." Not the answer I was looking for.

"If it is what she truly wants, then I will allow it, but she is not ready, and if you don't wait for her to be, then we will have a problem."

"Very well Garrett. When she is ready," he acceded, and left for his own hunt.

She continued to hunt with me, or by herself. When she went alone, I always checked on her, to be sure she was not sneaking off to kill with him, to see what it was like. But she persisted, always curious about how to kill differently, and after another ten years, I was finally ready for her to be on her own. Though it pained me desperately. Perhaps a clean shaven face would help to convince her not to hunt with William.

I pulled her aside after William was finished planning, and remembered Mary's conversation with me, just before my first and only hunt with William.

"Keep your wits about you. If his killing is too horrible for you, then simply leave and find me, and we will hunt together. You don't have to hunt with him, no matter how persuasive he may be." I tried to make my voice severe. Susan knew of William's talents. I was not altogether certain that they weren't to blame for her desire to hunt with him. He was as desperate as ever for a hunting companion.

"Garrett," she put the full force of her melodic voice and her piercing red eyes upon me. "I love you more than anything. You even shaved that awful beard for me!" She stroked the skin of my face, and I soared with gladness at a newly discovered way to feel her touch. "But I want to do this. I love this new life, more than you I think. My old life was full of love for my children, but nothing else. That freedom you so love was not something I ever had until now. I want to do this. If I do not like it, then I will leave, but each new thing I can experience in this life makes me happy."

She smiled at me, and my argument was lost. Her smile was too dazzling.

"I can deny you nothing, woman. Go then, love, and come back to me. Just don't let it change you. You're perfect as you are." I hoped my answering smile did not betray my nervousness.

We kissed tenderly at first, and then fiercely, and I pulled her to me, unwilling to let her go. It was only when I realized that she was pushing my face away with her hands that I finally released her.

William and Mary waited by the door, and we stepped out into chaos.

Washington was burning. The British had set fire to nearly every government building they could find. The home of the president was lit up in the distance. I did not particularly like this war that America was involved in, a war for Canada despite the alternative reasons provided by the government, but that certainly didn't stop me from supporting my people over the British.

Mary was off immediately, to her private and efficient hunt. Her hunt bored me, though I knew it was the most humane way to kill. I was willing to drink these humans, but I knew it was not right. I supposed she was the best of our coven.

I clutched Susan's hand in mine for a moment, then watched as she and William disappeared the opposite way on New Jersey Avenue from Mary. Time for my own hunt.

I found my British prey easily. I respected them for strictly adhering to their orders not to burn homes or businesses, but that certainly wouldn't stop me. I waited until they separated, and followed two of them from a distance while they moved through the streets of the capital. They were well trained, and turned on me as soon as I made my presence known. They fired upon me immediately, and I let the bullets hit me. I did not feel them when they struck my chest, and the only attention I gave them was to hope they had missed my jacket. Thank goodness I'd left it open.

Astonishment broke their training as I continued forward, and they turned and fled. I laughed out loud and easily cleared the fifty yards between us.

As soon as I finished with them, I could no longer concentrate on hunting. I should not have allowed Susan to go with William. I needed to stop whatever it was he had planned. She could not be subjected to his terror. I turned to where we had parted, to trail their scent.

And a new scent struck me. It was vampire, but not my coven.

I had never smelled another vampire outside of the coven before. The scent was sweet and strange, more feminine than masculine but smelling of both. Floral, like all of our kind, but more similar to William than to me.

The street was empty but for myself and the bodies of the soldiers, and I saw the vampire in the shadows before he stepped in front of me, one hundred yards away, between myself and William and Susan. He was tall and thin, not muscular at all but taller than me. He was dressed completely in black but for the white collar of his shirt that peeked through his jacket.

He spoke before I could.

"Excuse me, but I believe you are lost. This is my territory."

I smirked. He was British. I disliked him immediately.


	19. 16 AIRBORNE 1944

16

**16. AIRBORNE (1944)**

"Yeh ready ter do this?" Danny shouted over the roar of the engines of the C-47 Skytrain.

"This is the fun part!" I shouted back. I'd tried to kill myself by jumping off cliffs and a few tall buildings, but these new heights that we jumped from were absolutely exhilarating. My excitement was overwhelming every other emotion. I could probably get away with not opening my parachute on this mission. Perhaps the ground would, at least, give me some pain. I knew it wouldn't kill me. Not a good death.

Danny and I had, of course, volunteered to be pathfinders for the D-Day invasion. We could use our special skills far more easily as scouts than as part of the 82nd Airborne to which we were assigned. We were technically part of the 508th Regiment, but once we hit the ground, we would be on our own. Our job was to prepare the way for the rest of the 82nd and the 101st the next day, but we could complete the operation and help clear out some of the Germans rushing to Normandy at the same time.

"Trust me, this will be bloody brilliant!" I shouted to Danny. My fondness for the British was shocking even to me, and I'd picked up this new slang word during our training at RAF North Witham for Operation Neptune, the early assault that we paratroopers would make before Operation Overlord began.

Dropping into Sicily the year before had been more fun than I would have imagined. There was a danger in these drops for our kind. Practice jumps were easy, but when we jumped into live fire, we ran a real risk of being destroyed, shells aimed directly at us, shells that burned. And France would be more volatile than Sicily had been.

Danny was finally feeling my excitement. "Yev got to be ther craziest SOB I ever met! Christ, if me mother could see me now!" His face was beaming, his grin ear to ear.

We were the strangest pair of GIs. We appeared out of nowhere with transfer papers, never took off our uniforms, and rarely spoke to any of the soldiers without the presence of the other. Who knew what they thought of us? Though we were surprisingly well liked. I supposed it was our enthusiasm. Or the fact that we seemingly wanted to die, volunteering for every dangerous mission, including this one. Then others didn't have to offer their lives.

In Sicily, we'd disappeared for weeks, only to reappear in the dead of night under friendly fire. After that, other members of the 508 regarded us as either the luckiest bastards in the 82nd, or the two guys one should stay away from.

I'd won a game of high card (I cheated, of course, and changed the deck with vampire speed) so that Danny and I would be first out of the plane after our commanding officer. I'd heard there was a Captain Winters over in the 101st. I supposed irony only went so far, or else I'd have jumped with Easy Company the next day.

"I'm not pulling my 'chute!" I yelled to Danny. That took him a moment to process, and then he gave me a shocked look.

"What do yeh mean?" he shouted back.

"I'm going to be first on the ground for this!" Well, the 101st pathfinders dropped an hour before us, but the first from the 82nd.

"Yed tell me if et would kill me?" God bless the boy. He was nearly as crazy as me.

"It'll hurt like all hell, but as long as you don't catch fire, you'll be fine!"

"Wait, it 'urts? What's ther point?"

"To feel something!" I shouted, and then we were lining up to jump.

"Pull your 'chute! I'll be there when you land!" As long as I didn't lose too many body parts when I hit the ground.

"A'right! See yeh down ther!" Danny was grinning again. I heard the booms of anti-aircraft fire around us. Then my commander was gone, and I was out as soon as the light was green.

The exhilaration was immediate, and the rush washed everything from my mind. I quickly unstrapped my helmet and loosened my hair so that it flowed behind me, then spread my body against the wind pushing upward, contrary to my fall. I felt the helmet dent in my hand and fixed my grip so that I would not lose it, though it would still be with me when I landed.

In my immortal life, where years seemed like weeks and days seemed like seconds, the freefall was the only way I could slow time, make a few seconds feel as though I was living a few minutes.

I ignored the explosions around me and considered the years since I'd met Danny, the best companion I could possibly have, considering my mental state. He was so lonely in Ireland that he immediately agreed to give up his mostly empty territory in Mayo for a companion and some adventure. He easily bored of the simple vampire lifestyle, the same as I.

We'd crisscrossed Europe for two decades, searching for werewolves and whatever other adventure we could find. I was the leader of a small coven, the way Danny followed me. He had a bold personality, but he did not know how to use it, and I took advantage of his gullibility.

I felt guilty, on occasion, but Danny always seemed to enjoy himself as long as we were moving forward, as long as we had some sort of a plan. Though I could hardly use the word "plan" for what we were doing. Our wanderings were aimless at first, and it was five years before we encountered another vampire. And that vampire knew even less about werewolves than Danny did.

They were enormous creatures, according to Danny, taller than even myself, and that was on four legs. They did not look like dogs or wolves, for they had little hair, except where their hair had been as a human.

"Ther all muscle. Ain't no fat on 'em. Ther 'ead is big as yer torso, and ther body is quarter to a ton." He spoke of them in fear and reverence on that first night when we met.

"Look's though a 'uman became a monster. Like a naked 'uman became a big dog with ner an 'air on 'is body, a nasty dog big'r then the biggest bear yeh might've seen. The teeth be all fangs, and long ones. Like knives, crook'd knives. The moon glints off them knives like off water or a mirr'r.

"They only come out in ther moonlight, when ther moon is bright in ther sky, full so they say. Them's 'umans otherwise, but ther smell ain't 'uman. Smell like an animal all ther time, even when they's 'uman. Never 'unted no animal since me change, but I smelled em time ter time. Smell better when they's a kill'r."

I nodded at this. I'd encountered many animals, and the predators smelled closer to human, though not enough to smell appetizing. I faintly recollected the smell of stray dogs whenever I smelled the hunters. Their prey smelled even worse.

"And them eyes," he continued. "Them eyes er all black, black'r than even our eyes when we ain't eaten fer awhile." He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the eyes. Any sight that could make a vampire shudder was indeed frightening.

"I don't know that they can be killed. Ther frightenin' large, and Jonathan 'ad no ideer that they could be killed. What I told yer were from what 'e knew with ther moon and ther 'uman stuff. I seen it far away, and Jonathan 'ad me run when we seen it. We ran ter nearest water and started ter swim, though I just 'eld me breath and walked on ther bottom. Can't swim. Only time I seen 'im scared when we was together." He was frightened by what he had seen, I could tell, though he would not speak of his fright in front of a stranger on his own territory, despite how quickly we'd gotten along.

I was obsessed with these Children of the Moon from that point forward. The greatest joy I knew as a hunter and warrior was fighting vampires. If there was anything worse than a vampire, I had to find it.

I could hardly imagine what that kill would feel like. Or, even better, what my death would feel like at the hands of the monster. A good death. After the dark time, my purpose in life was a good death. Perhaps I might find one with these creatures. If not, then at least a new preoccupation to overcome the old.

And so we'd searched Europe. We stayed on the British Isles at first, avoiding the Irish and British vampires and their territory, especially Siobhan and her coven. The first vampire we encountered was a cowardly monster named Alistair. I withstood his company for only a few days. He disgusted me with his fear. Though he also reminded me of the presence of the Volturi, and that we would be wise to avoid Italy unless we had to. I wished I'd approached them when I wanted to die, but to approach them now would not be a good death. Not the death I desired. I would not walk into a slaughter. Though the thought was tempting, I was too curious about the werewolves.

I would have simply killed Alistair, but he was far too pathetic. I understood nothing about how he lived, why he would even want to live his life. How could _I_ be suicidal when _he_ was not? An awful creature. He would never approach something as dangerous as a werewolf

The Great Depression provided us with ample human diversions. Covering my kills in the new era of humanity was never so easy. But there was no pleasure in those hunts.

Danny and I killed a particularly territorial vampire in France in the mid-1930's. I no longer accounted for the years, at least not until we joined the war. The vampire claimed all of Paris as his territory, but he had no companion. My experience and our numbers were enough to make short work of him.

I let Danny have most of the kill, and he was even more excited for our mission against the werwolves once he'd encountered another of our kind and used his speed and reflexes to the fullest. But I found France odious and ostentatious, and we moved on to Germany. I was disgusted by their affairs as well, and we travelled east, until Germany attacked Poland.

Danny was even more excited to join the war effort than I was, after hearing my stories of the Great War, though his loathing the British, nearly as much as the Nazis, made him hesitate. I had lost my enmity towards the British over the years, through the American alliances with them, and he was easily convinced as to which side we should join, since neither of us spoke German. Still, we only entered when my countrymen finally crossed the Atlantic.

He would follow me anywhere. My experience breaking into the AEF during the Great War helped us to enter the US Army, and an Irishman in the army was hardly a surprise. And so we procured uniforms and papers, this time through false documentation, and were members of an elite unit.

We wore our uniforms at all times when in daylight, and covered ourselves in dirt and occasionally makeup to disguise our skin. In Britain the problems were rare, as the sky was often gray, but in Italy such coverage was a problem, and we remained in the field after the scrambled landing in Sicily, killing Italians and Germans from behind the lines as long as possible.

I loved this war more than any I'd participated in since the Revolution. With Danny next to me, I was not putting off my depression as I had during the Great War. I was enjoying myself, as recklessly as I could. I often wondered whether the shell of a German Panzer could destroy me. I longed for an opportunity to dive in front of a GI and find out. I would not allow the artillery to kill me, however. That was not a good death.

A round exploded a few hundred feet away from me, the impact and the heat from the explosion bringing me to reality. I saw Danny, his 'chute unfurling behind him, from the corner of my eye.

I refused to let my hands move to the cord.

And then every bone in my body broke.


	20. 17 CALLING 1814

17

**17. CALLING (1814)**

"Did you not hear me? You have entered a territory already occupied by our kind. Washington is our land. You should not be hunting here."

The British vampire moved into the light, and it was as if he'd stepped straight out of vampire mythology. His hair was black as night, slicked back on his head, pulled into an oily pony tail. His face was thin and angular, and whiter than any in my coven. His eyes burned bright red. He had obviously just finished a kill as well. He moved as though he floated, and there was very little in his action that was human. He held his arms behind him, wrists clasped, as he floated toward me, stopping only twenty yards away.

We could not have been more different, though we were in many ways the same. He was tall and lanky, as I was, though he was thinner, and his body did not belie hidden muscle the way mine did. But there the similarities ended. He was well kept in appearance, his clothes tailored and unmarred, his hair carefully restrained. His suit was pitch black, matching his hair. His jacket was not normal, for it did not open at the breast, but buttoned to his throat.

I did not risk a glance at my own appearance, but I could guess. My dear coat was tattered as always, with patches that did not match, and signs of my early, and awful, attempts as a seamstress. It hung open, and the white shirt I wore underneath had been dirty even before the two rounds to the chest, so it was surely in pieces, beyond fixing. I had not bothered to tuck the shirt in, and it hung loose. My beige breeches were smeared as well, and they were tucked into boots that were scuffed and worn. My sandy hair hung wild around my face, my ponytail loosened from the feed, and though I had cleaned myself before shaving, I was sure that my hair was unkempt, for I had not bothered with it, hoping my tricolor would cover anything that might bother Susan.

Though my own features would not be described as pretty, I guessed they had a rougher quality than this vampire's. His affectations exuded sophistication, and even his features suggested it, while my own appearance demonstrated my wildness and years in wars and forests and wilderness, away from society and humanity. I liked to think that I was more masculine than this vampire.

"I wasn't aware that there were limits to where I could hunt," I spat, perhaps less cordially than I should have. My initial instinct of distaste had not abated.

"Yes, quite. I am Francis, and my companion, Steven, and I control this city and its surrounding areas. We claimed it as soon as construction began. I have no wish for a fight, but we will defend our territory."

So he was giving me limitations.

"I think I'll hunt wherever I like," I replied, and deliberately added threat to my voice, though my face was still full of humor instead of wrath.

"Foolish boy. How old are you? No more than thirty five years, judging from that jacket. I have lived for centuries. I have seen the rise and fall of kings and queens. I witnessed the death of Mary of the Scots, saw the plays of Shakespeare performed at the Globe when he was still alive. I watched Cromwell overthrow the monarchy and destroy the Irish, then saw the kings return. I have seen you Americans kill Indians while my countrymen have fought the French time and again. And I have claimed many a territory. Do you think I know not how to defend myself?" He was confident, haughty even, an embodiment of what I hated about the English. I guessed he'd either been noble as a human or claimed nobility as a vampire, the way he spoke.

"Shakespeare, eh? Heard good things. Have to read him sometime." In truth, I had read everything he'd written over the last thirty years, and enjoyed it immensely, once Mary had helped me understand the phrases he used. Reading had become my most passionate interest when I was not on the hunt or with Susan, and his plays were the finest literature I'd encountered so far. I hoped to one day see some of his plays in person. But let the vampire think I was a fool.

Which he did. "Imbecile. Please, leave now. Though I would be doing vampire-kind a favor by removing you from this earth, I have no desire to demean myself by engaging in a physical confrontation with you. You are not worthy of my time." I decided to kill him as the words left his mouth.

What an amazing feeling, to enter a battle I might not win! I had fought with William before, but I was never sure in those fights that the outcome would be the death of one of us. However, whether this Francis knew it or not, one of us would not walk away from this fight. The blood of the British soldiers soared in my body, and, had I a heartbeat, it would have quickened then.

"Name's Garrett. And my territory is pretty much anywhere I wish to feed." My smirk turned into a wide grin as his face changed from faint revulsion to outright indignity.

"There are rules, _boy_. We respect each other's territories, and we do not fight unless we must. Leave now, and I will not destroy you. I have no wish to kill another of our kind, even one as repugnant as yourself." His voice was threatening now as well, though his face had no joy upon it the way mine did.

"I've heard of only one rule, and I doubt I'll break it ridding my country of a damned Redcoat vampire." I moved to my hunting crouch, though my face only returned to a smirk, rather than the usual snarl that accompanied my attack. This was not prey, after all. This was a kill in the purest form. For the first time in nearly four decades, my body burned for something other than Susan and blood. The hunt that I imagined was here. Finally, a real hunt.

He crouched as I did, and he snarled, a strange sound from someone so refined. I didn't bother. He already knew my intentions. I simply nodded and held my smirk. Let him come to me.

He did not disappoint. He was upon me in far less than a second. And he had fought another vampire before. His attack was based entirely upon his teeth finding my body, and he used his other attributes to open my defenses.

His arms struck my own when he leapt across the short distance between us, smashing my arms, which I'd put in front of me, and his teeth immediately snapped towards my body. I expected his attack, and allowed my body to move with the momentum of his strike, so that I rolled to my left behind my arms. I felt my right wrist break from his strike, but ignored the pain, conscious that I needed to avoid his teeth, which missed completely. He stood in the space I had occupied, and I was but a few feet away. He pushed the advantage he saw.

He leapt at me again, but this time I was too fast, and followed immediately behind his attack so that I was on his back. I did not bother with teeth, and instead used my left fist to strike a strong blow to his shoulder, then immediately rolled to the right to avoid his counterstrike. He missed by a wide margin and we faced each other again. His face was more pensive now, considering his next move.

"Not so easy as you thought, eh?" I nearly laughed, and then lurched toward him, feinting a move towards his face but instead going low, my left fist smashing his right knee. I heard a crack from that blow, but his own strike hit the back of my head, sending me sprawling.

He used my disorientation and sunk his teeth into my shoulder, and I felt pain as horrible as the shot that had hit me at Yorktown. But he was close now, and I grabbed his body and tossed him from me as hard as I could, feeling my vampire flesh rip for the first time, hearing a sound I'd only heard when I'd ripped my teeth through William. I could not stop a cry of anguish.

He was upon me again, thinking he had the advantage. But every time he was close to me, it was I who had the advantage He was as fast or faster than me, and his reach was longer, in addition to his experience. But I was stronger and far more ferocious. He thought me weak after the injury to my shoulder, but some of his speed was lost to his knee, and he favored his left side.

I darted to my right as he lunged, and then attacked myself, inside of the defense of his longer arms, and battered his torso with my fists while striking his face with my teeth. I ripped a long gash along his cheek and broke a few ribs before he was able to disengage himself from me.

He leapt away, fifty yards, and appraised me as he touched his own cheek, surprised by the thick blood on his hand. "You have done this before?" he asked.

"Just once. Never saw it through," I replied, and then I was the aggressor, closing the distance in a human heartbeat.

Our dance was different than the dance William and I had engaged in. His was skill and experience, range and intelligence. Mine was instinct and terror. I was capable of violence I did not know in the thrill of the moment. I was made for this, body and soul. And once I realized this, the fight was over, though it continued long into the night.

I wanted to win more than he did. He thought about his movements, tried to use his superior knowledge. My mind became blank. He could not anticipate my movements, for I did not know what they would be myself. I thought of the hunt with humans, how my senses took over everything, how I lost control. I had stopped this instinct to prolong the hunt. I had no such compunction now, for this _was the hunt_. This was my calling.

We fought, and the city burned. I hurt, and the city burned. He bled, and the city burned. I was aware of nothing but the kill, but he was always conscious of his surroundings, of the burning buildings, of the pavement beneath him, of my next movement. I simply attacked, again and again and again. I cared nothing for my own life. Susan was gone. The bloodlust was gone. Everything was gone. He didn't stand a chance.

And then I finally had a thought.

He feared the burning buildings, so I thrust us into one.

We were on Pennsylvania Avenue, not at the president's home yet but next to what used to be the building for the treasury. And I simply grabbed him, ignoring his blows, and threw us both into the fire.

Our bodies lit immediately, and he screamed and began to tear his clothing from himself, his jacket bright yellow and orange and blue with flame. I ignored the pain of the fire burning my legs and used my teeth to rip his left leg from his body above the knee, my teeth digging through flesh and bone and sinew until his leg was no longer a part of his body. Francis was suddenly screaming in front of me, unable to hold himself up, prone on the ground, the flames licking his back, his leg twitching beside him.

Despite the loss of his leg, he attempted to beat the fire from his body. He feared the flames. They must kill our kind, were he this old and yet feared them. I grabbed the leg and placed it in the heaviest of the fire, and he screamed in anger as well as pain. I beat out the fire on my own legs, and felt the pain of it as it ruined my britches, boots, and smallclothes, burned my flesh, but I withheld my own screams. He would not get the satisfaction. Francis rolled on the floor in front of me, trying to douse the fire on his back, but he could barely control his body, his pain was so intense. I wondered if he could feel his dismembered leg as it burned.

I needed to be sure he was dead. I ripped his other leg from his body. And then his arms. I threw each limb into a different part of the fire. Then I looked him in the eyes.

"Yankee…bastard!" he rasped. Blood spurted from his mouth as he spoke his last words.

"Imbecile, yes? Which one of us is walking out here, you English son of a bitch?"

And my teeth sunk into his neck, tasting the blood of the civilians he'd killed (I would have recognized a Redcoat's blood), and threw his body to the flames. I let his head sit in the open. Perhaps he would be aware, still, as the flames slowly moved to destroy the last of him.

I could barely contain my excitement when I returned to my coven. I even forgot about Susan hunting with William.

My high was only lost when I discovered Mary was no longer with us.


	21. 18 WHY WE FIGHT 1944

18

**18. WHY WE FIGHT (1944)**

"Ow…"

I was momentarily disoriented. I could not remember where I was or even who I was. I thought I was speaking, but I doubted the words made sense. My first awareness was of crushing, blinding pain. The most intense pain I'd ever felt.

Then memory began to return. No, not the worst pain I'd ever felt. That was the burning. I suddenly remembered the burning. Yes, that was much worse.

And Susan. That pain was worse too. Just thinking of her beautiful face, human and inhuman, was more painful than whatever my body was experiencing now. It was actually refreshing to concentrate on my current physical predicament, to embrace this crushing pain, to experience it. I once again washed away all thought, all memory. Yes, I had done this to myself for a reason. A very good reason.

I tried to move. I started with fingers and toes. Many of them were broken. I pushed one finger against another, did the same with my toes, trying to set them so that they would heal. The process was not slow, but would have gone far faster had I had greater use of my body. One bone at a time then.

First the middle finger of my right hand, unbroken, setting the index finger. Then the index setting the thumb, while the middle set the ring. The pinky was already fine. I repeated the process with my left, having to start with my ring finger. I set the bones, and waited for my body to heal, for the joints to reconnect, and copied the process with my toes. Now for my hands.

The healing was exhaustingly slow. Never had I broken this many bones, not when I'd leapt off the highest cliff face I could find, not when I'd jumped into the enormous canyon in Arizona that was now called Grand. Not even when I'd taken the artillery straight to the chest twenty something years ago. That had been extremely painful, had blown much of my body to bits and burned to boot, but not broken so many bones. More painful, but far easier to heal.

My toes were useless to heal anything else. I needed my arms. I jerked my wrists when my hands were healed, and heard a roar of pain as I reset them. My own roar. When the wrists healed, I finally had full range of motion in the hands. They needed to do the work. My fingers gripped the ground beneath me. Grass and dirt. I risked opening my eyes.

It was dark, but no hindrance to my vampire vision. I was in a forest at night. I made out the trees. I realized that I was surrounded by branches. I wondered why, and then realized I'd probably brought them with me as I'd fallen. I could not move my neck to see my body, but I thought I was face down on a forest floor.

I used my hands to drag my arms toward my face. When a hand reached my eyes, I tested, first my left, then right, flicking my fingers. So I was facing right. I let the hand crawl past me, and had the left follow suit, so that they touched above my head. Then each hand went to work setting the opposite arm, first forearm, then elbow, then shoulder. It must have been an hour just to do that. When my arms were healed, I moved my hands back to my face, and to my neck.

With a sickening crunch, I twisted. My head had turned too far right, and I jerked my head towards the ground, so that I saw nothing but dirt and grass while I waited for it to heal. The neck took longer than any of the other joint. When it was finally set, I pushed against the ground with my left arm and rolled myself over.

I could look at my body then. It was grossly deformed, my back broken in several places, every rib shattered, my legs crooked. But I had not lost anything. Just broken, but not in pieces. That was good. Best to start with the back.

I could not stop myself from my memories as I continued the painful yet tedious process, so I concentrated on the happy ones, but almost every moment was bittersweet. Susan's green eyes glinting in the sunlight. William laughing over a meager dinner. They would never be human again. Susan's naked body, glowing by the light of the fire, as I caressed her flesh. Hard to a human, and cold, yet soft and warm to my touch. I would never have that intimacy, with her or anyone else, again. Mary…I nearly smiled at that thought. Bittersweet, but not as bad as thoughts of William and Susan. No, thinking of Mary was not more painful than my injuries, despite her place in my past. Perhaps I was finally able to forgive her.

I was setting the third of four separate breaks in my back when I heard a rustling in the forest. I supposed, in my current state, I could pretend to be dead. If it was a Kraut, I could kill him without using my legs. Then I caught the familiar scent, and knew that Danny had tracked me down.

"Jaysus Garrett, what 'ave yeh done ter yerself?" He exclaimed when he finally saw me.

I muttered something, and then realized I hadn't fixed my jaw. It was broken in three places, and I moved to set it. I reset my nose as well.

"I just need another hour or so," I said, trying to keep my tone casual. "You can watch if you like."

And so Danny crouched next to me and we spoke quietly while I fixed the rest of my body, Danny helping to reset my legs while I worked on my ribs. With his help, the healing process took half of the time I'd guessed.

"Why in ther hell would yeh want ter do this?" He asked as we worked.

"'Having nothing, nothing can he lose,'" I quoted quietly, only a whisper.

"What in ther hell do that mean?" He was resetting my right knee, and I stifled a cry of anguish.

"Shakespeare, Danny, _Henry the Sixth, Part III_," I grunted. "And it doesn't mean anything. Don't worry about it." If Danny and I were to continue to spend time together, he would have to catch up on his reading. A man who could not discuss Shakespeare was no man at all.

We finally finished, and I hunted for my rifle and the rest of my belongings. We were lucky no one had come upon us. Once I was fully outfitted, we sniffed the air for German prey, and then went to work.

XXX

The Tiger II rolled over the crest, and I was directly beneath its weaker underbelly. No use for the rifle, so I flung it away and braced the tank above me, and began ripping through the metal between the tracks. The tank was enormous, but its weight meant little to me.

I knew from experience that there would be five Krauts in side. Too many to feed on. I would simply have to kill three of them. But the officers were fun to eat.

Danny and I had once again surprised our unit when we'd rejoined them as the Allied hold on the Normandy beaches strengthened, though this time, with the way all the paratroopers had been spread behind enemy lines, our return was less of a shock. Apparently, hundreds, if not thousands, of paratroopers were still missing and unaccounted for. We even heard a story about an entire team that was tracking down a lone paratrooper deep in enemy territory. I couldn't imagine why.

Once we'd rejoined the 82nd, we got a bit of rest before our next major operation in August and September. This one, Operation Market Garden, was aimed at liberating much of the Netherlands from German forces. This had been our last major offensive, and the Allies had worked to shore up our hold before we moved further.

Unfortunately, this allowed the Germans to plan a counteroffensive, and a very effective one. Once we'd taken Antwerp, the Germans decided to move in the west, rather than suffering further losses against the unstoppable Soviets. Apparently they felt a bit more confident fighting Americans. We'd have to see about that.

They'd used the same attack plan that had utterly decimated the French four and a half years earlier, driving through the supposedly untenable Ardennes Forest, and we let ourselves fall into the same trap. Now our lines were nearly split in two between north and south, and the driving snow made air support for our men nearly impossible.

The 82nd had dropped in a week after the attack began, north of what was being called "the bulge" in our defensive line. The 101st was already there, and they'd withstood a massive siege by the Krauts at Bastogne. Every soldier was talking about McAuliffe's reply to the German request for surrender. "NUTS." Bless the man. A Captain Winters, withstanding a siege, and an officer so crazy he'd told the Germans "nuts" in reply to surrender. I loved the 82nd, but I really thought we'd picked the wrong Airborne Division.

Danny and I decided to leave the 82nd then. We didn't really care what our brothers thought of us, because being part of the unit during a standard drop did not allow us to use our vampire abilities to the fullest. We assumed they'd think us dead. We were too gung ho to be deserters.

I was inside the tank now, enjoying the German officer after breaking driver's neck, when Danny joined me from above, feeding on the gunner. He must have finished decimating the accompanying soldiers. The other Germans were scrambling away from us, looking for any way out of the Tiger. One crawled through the hole I'd made. The tank had lurched to a stop on the other side of the crest, and he had to crawl underneath it. I thought he was the radio operator.

The loader went out the top, and Danny finished with the gunner and went after him. I moved after the radio man, but the tank suddenly shook violently around me. Fire spread through the opening Danny had made at the top. I continued after the radio operator, away from the flames. I was almost upon him, out from underneath the tank, when I heard a scream that was not human.

I turned to assess the situation, forgetting my prey. An American Sherman had fired on the defenseless Tiger, not knowing that we had already taken care of it. Smoke billowed from the turret, clouding my vision. I saw the loader on the ground, his body charred and lifeless. Where the devil was Danny?

I leapt atop the tank, and saw him lying limp upon the now mangled main gun of the tank. His body, too was maimed and charred, but he was still alive. Sort of. I examined him as I moved closer. The round had not struck him directly, but a large chunk of shrapnel, still ablaze, was wedged into his stomach. Danny had never been cut before, never injured, not in his vampire life. I could not imagine how much this might shock him.

His eyes were wide with concern as I looked at his face. "Glad…I pulled…ther cord," he groaned, and tried to smile at me. I hoped that my answering smile would look genuine.

"Let's get out of the line of fire and we'll take care of that, okay?" I asked, trying to keep my voice light. I picked him up easily and carried him from the tank, across the deep packed snow, and into the woods. I moved quickly east, well past the German lines this far to the north of the battle, deep into the Ardennes.

I placed him gently against a tree, and then moved to examine the wound. It was not bad, though it still burned. Ignoring the pain I knew to be coming, I grabbed the shrapnel and pulled it quickly from his gut. I heard a sizzle when it hit the snow, and smelled the burning flesh of my hand. I ignored that too, grabbing snow and placing it on and in his wound, so that it could cool and heal. Fortunately, this soothed my own hand as well. Once the wound cooled sufficiently, I held the two sides together and waited for his flesh to fuse together.

Danny had not spoken during this process, and instead he simply watched me.

I smirked at him, trying to keep everything light. "That was nothing. You should have seen the shell I took in the Great War. Straight to the chest, not shrapnel but the full load. Though these burn a bit hotter, I must admit."

"Yeh. Weren't nothin'. I ain't feel ah thing," he replied. I knew he was lying, but he smiled, and he seemed to want me to believe him. No reason to argue.

His wound was completely gone within minutes, the only remaining signs the blood around it and the destruction of his uniform.

"Done with this war then?" I asked. I felt confident about America's chances without two insane vampires helping out.

"Yeh. Let's find us some Children o' ther Moon," he replied.

My responsive grin was completely genuine.

XXX

We traveled for three years without a trace, without encountering a single other vampire. The Allies crushed the Germans, and the Americans dropped a bomb on the Japanese. For three years we did not catch a scent.

We were in the cold plains of Poland when I caught a vampire scent. I waited for Danny, hunting on his own, to find me before I began pursuit.

He recognized the scent immediately.

"Tis Jonathan."


	22. 19 VENDETTA 1822

19

**19. VENDETTA (1822)**

"Would you like to try looking again? Perhaps she is in some trouble. We could return to Washington," I suggested as we sat in the quiet shade of a mountain forest in Vermont.

"No need," William replied. "I do not know what has upset her, but she will come around. Mary loves our family."

I was not so sure.

XXX

I was the first to arrive at our meeting point outside of the city, to my great surprise. Mary was the most cautious of our coven, and the quickest to fulfill her need. She would finish her hunt, and then scout our meeting point, in this case north and west of the burning city, in a clearing next to the Potomac River. But although I dallied with the vampire, I was there before her, and I caught nothing of her scent.

So I waited, thinking about killing Francis and the pleasure that it brought me, and watched the city burn in the distance. I assumed his head was gone now as well.

William and Susan arrived in the daylight, hours after I had. Still, there was no sign of Mary.

But that was not William's first question.

"What is that smell, Garrett? I do not recognize it." His face was worried.

"Mary has not returned-" I thought this would be his primary concern, so I waited on my story, but he stopped me.

"The smell! What is it!" he hissed.

"I found another vampire. The British scum thought the city was his. I convinced him otherwise." I smirked at my little joke.

"Garrett, are you all right?" Susan rushed to me and hugged me fiercely, then began examining my body. "Oh, your shoulder!" she exclaimed, tugging at my jacket and shirt while I tried to shrug her away.

"And?" William pressed, not caring about any injury I may have sustained.

"You wouldn't believe it, William. It was like nothing I've ever done. I gave myself to the hunt, and I destroyed him. Centuries old, born in the sixteenth century, killed by a vampire of only a handful of decades! The experience was indescribable." I knew the joy exuded from my face.

Susan pushed away from me, and I feared she worried over my mental well being rather than the physical. William's face was shocked as well.

"How…?" Susan trailed off. I saw the same question in William's eyes.

"I tore him limb from limb, then burned the body parts. A bit unseemly, but goddamn fun in the moment." I could not keep the grin from my face.

"Good for you then, Garrett, as long as you're sure that he is gone. So Mary has not returned?" William obviously did not want to continue the subject. Hated not being the center of attention.

"No. I must say I'm very surprised. She is always the first to arrive."

"We'll find her scent then," he replied, and he turned back to the city. Susan and I followed.

"How was your hunt?" I asked her as we made up our ground to the still smoking city. My concern was for my love now.

"It was horrible. Though not as bad as you described. I could be around it. I could feed. But there was no more pleasure in that than any other hunt. It was worse, I suppose. I would rather be with you." She smiled shyly at me with her last sentence, and I could not take my eyes off of her. I could have run through a tree, and still I would not have moved my eyes from that shy smile, and from her cheeks, a lovely shade of faint pink against white from the recent hunt. Mary be damned, I could have stopped right there and made love to her in the empty street. Who cared if anyone saw?

But William caught Mary's scent and distracted me. We found a body, drained of blood, on K Street, and another on New Jersey Avenue. Her scent approached a brownstone in Georgetown. It appeared to linger there for awhile, but she had not entered. William had a strange look on his face, confusion mixed with dismay, and he no longer seemed to expect that we would find her. We followed Mary's scent to the river, where it disappeared.

We went back to the meeting point, but Mary had not been there. Susan smiled at me again, and I could no longer ignore my urges. William groaned in impatience as we entered the woods and left him standing by the river.

"I guess we're on our own then," William said, when we returned, hours later.

XXX

We'd travelled across most of America, living as we had before, but searching for Mary as well. I longed to catch the scent of another vampire, to find another fight, but, though we saw much of my country, we did not find one. We went to New Orleans, a strange city, very unlike American cities, with its French influences.

The heat of the place seemed oppressive to the humans that lived there, though it was rather a nice change, almost noticeable even to my insensitive skin. And it rained nearly every day when the wet air could contain itself no longer, giving us a few extra hours to move amongst the mortals. It was a wild and lawless city, and we hunted freely. The city was far more cosmopolitan than any other I'd seen, even New York, owing to its French past and its position near the mouth of the mighty river. But we did not linger, for we still hoped to find Mary.

We'd ranged south, through Virginia and the Carolinas and into Georgia, before moving west to Louisiana, then back north by a more westerly path, away from the coast. Though I rather liked the heat, as did Susan, the culture of the South was not to my liking. I thought that William and Susan enjoyed it more than me, but William was far too concerned with his coven, his "family", being whole, to worry about concerns of climate and culture.

And so we were in the Green Mountains of Vermont when William finally seemed to give up his pursuit of Mary. We had exhausted every avenue. We had no more options. He was now confident that she would simply find us whenever she was ready.

Susan and I went hunting together, leaving William to his own pursuits. No savages remained this far to the east. The mortal Americans had forced them west, over the mountains of Appalachia, into the ever expanding American frontier. So we would make due with a normal kill. I tried to kill like Mary on these excursions, quickly and efficiently. I felt no joy without a hunt. Susan's kills were always more prolonged, as she savored the blood that was merely sustenance to me without the thrill of the chase.

I watched her take down the second of the two surveyors we had found after I broke the neck of the first and drained him. Her body convulsed with each gulp of blood, and as his body grew colder, hers was warmer. I could not stop myself.

I bit into the body as well, and we shared the blood, staring into each other's eyes on opposite sides of his neck. It was almost as though we were kissing through the kill, as if I could taste her in the man's blood. Which just made me want to taste her myself. And then he was empty, and there was nothing between us.

The blood was thick in both of our mouths when our lips met, stone against stone. Somehow, as always, I was able to mind my jacket, pulling it off as we embraced and tossing it away. I would find it later.

"I can taste him on you…in you," Susan moaned as she tore my shirt from me, exposing my shoulders and my chest, her fingers digging into my muscle, clawing at the hair on my breast, not sandy, but not dark either.

She was kissing my cheek, my neck, down to my shoulder, where the scar of Francis' bite gleamed. And before I could react, she placed her teeth on the scar, and then broke the skin, and she was drinking again.

I screamed in pain. My first instinct was to push her away, but she gripped me fiercely, as if I were a kill. I pulled her to me and drove us away from the bodies, into the forest, away from our kills, hoping to break her concentration. I shielded her from the worst of our fall, hitting the branches with my back, though I could not stop my body from jerking at each blow. She did not react, but I heard her moans as she continued to feed. She drank, and her body reacted in lust, as if we were making love. And I surprised myself. For suddenly that was exactly what I wanted

I ripped her dress from her body, and then I was inside her, and we were one, moreso than ever before, for she was even sharing my blood. I could not bear to do to her what she had done to me, could not imagine leaving a scar on her perfectskin, so I allowed her to drink, while I took my own pleasure from the encounter.

"Good God, don't stop," I begged.

When she was full, she withdrew her bite and smiled.

"I love you, Garrett Smith." There was blood on her teeth. She kissed me.

And I tasted the blood from my body, from our kill, on my tongue, and in my faintly burning throat.

My joy culminated in that kiss, and I felt her, her ecstasy climaxing with mine.

XXX

I was nearly giddy as we made our way back to where we had left William. I had never imagined that Susan and I could actually be closer than we already were. My shoulder was in a great deal of pain. And yet I longed to emulate this experience. Never had we come together in such a way. My preoccupation clouded my mind, distracting me, and it was Susan who caught it first.

"What smell is that?" she asked, a few hundred yards from the clearing.

Not Mary's. Another vampire's. My eyes widened in shock, and then happiness. Could God give me two such gifts in one day, a new way to love Susan and another vampire to kill? I grabbed Susan's hand and we trailed the scent immediately. I did not care why the vampire had approached our clearing.

It was only when the scent began to mingle with William's, when I realized that we were following both scents, that I became wary. The new vampire's scent was fresher than William's. He had tracked William down. Why?

And then another scent. The scent of smoke, farther away.

I increased my speed until I could not make my muscles move no faster, until Susan was lagging behind me. I saw the smoke above the tree line, only a mile away, and closed the distance in seconds, leaping the last few hundred yards, landing seventy-five feet from the burning cottage nestled in the trees at the base of the mountain, a small path leading away. The house was engulfed in flames.

"Amazing what one can do when they understand how fire works. You can turn a flame into an inferno in mere seconds with enough oil from a lamp."

The new vampire stepped out of the trees to my left. He was shorter than I, William's height, with long brown hair. He wore all black; a long black coat, black breeches tucked into black boots, his hair underneath a black tricolor. He was neither slight nor squat, but average in build. His face was square, and, of course, pale. He neither smiled nor frowned, but instead tilted his head as he examined me.

"You seem to have lost your shirt," he observed. I realized I wore only my jacket, as Susan and I had destroyed my shirt.

"I have sought you for many years now. And here I find you, pleasuring a woman. I'll be sure to kill her after I've taken care of you." He did not smile, but his expression became smug. Susan had not approached, and I hoped she had the sense to stay away once she saw the new vampire.

"I've spent all this time trying to find you. You may as well give me your name." His tone was pleasant, far too pleasant.

"Garrett," I replied tersely. His accent was of New England, from what I could tell.

"Well, Garrett, my name is Steven. You killed my mate Francis in Washington."

His mate?

"Don't be so narrow-minded Garrett," he said when he saw my look of shock. "We love who we love. And you took that from me. So now I will destroy you. I've started with your friend there," he nodded towards the burning house. "If you make it out alive, then I'll take care of you as well. And then your pretty girl. Such lovely hair." And he finally smiled, and then he turned his back to me, and ran into the forest.

Susan was in danger, but William was dead if I did not act. I had to move as quickly as I could.

So I removed my jacket and leapt into the flames.


	23. 20 FULL MOON 1948

20

_Author's Note: This chapter has a ton of exposition. Not to worry, plenty of fighting forthcoming._

**20. FULL MOON (1948)**

We tracked Jonathan for mile upon mile, northward, and noticed a strange scent that followed as well, similar to the scent of a dog, but more potent, as a bear would smell. Danny did not have to tell me, for I had already guessed. We had not merely caught the scent of his sire. We'd caught the scent of a werewolf. How convenient.

And then the scent of the wolf simply disappeared. There was a faint trace of it, not nearly as strong, that did not follow Jonathan's path, but moved west, while Jonathan continued his journey, or rather his flight, northward, away from the Carpathian Mountains and into the plains, a route that would take him directly to the Baltic. We stopped and considered.

"I say we follow Jonathan. We don't know if that be a Child o' ther Moon. Could be a regular wolf," Danny voiced his thoughts. I guessed he preferred a strengthening of our numbers as well.

If Jonathan knew a werewolf was following him, he would be hard to track. He could use the Vistula and its tributaries, or worse, enter one of the lake districts to the north, and we would never find him. His scent was strong now, and this would be our only chance. I agreed, and we followed him, ignoring the wolf for the time being.

And so we continued our pursuit for another fifty miles, and, to my surprise, caught up. I knew from the nature of his trail before that he had been in a hurry, but he was not anymore. He waited for us on the south bank of the Bug River opposite a small town. I did not know enough of Polish geography (or language, for that matter) to identify it.

He appeared wary at first, and then he either recognized or caught the scent of Danny, and his face and disposition were less apprehensive. He was very average looking to my vampire eyes, though I assumed a human would find him beautiful. His hair was brown, cut short and parted to one side. He was taller than Danny, but nowhere near as tall as me. He wore the clothes of a peasant or farmer, trousers and a shirt, well used. Much as Danny had dressed when I first met him, in Mayo nearly thirty years earlier. His face was unremarkable, and were it not for his unnaturally pale skin and crimson eyes, I doubted a human would pay him much notice. He reminded my vaguely of Steven. Ah, a name from the past, from the happiest times. Best not to dwell on that. I did not want a confrontation with Danny's sire. Though I was certainly in the mood for a fight.

"Daniel, my boy, so good to see you. You look well," His greeting seemed genuine, and his accent was of southern England, easy to understand. The last thing I needed was to listen to a Northerner talk to an Irishman. Or worse, a Scot. The ones from Glasgow claimed they spoke English, but it was no language I'd ever heard.

"Good ter see yeh as well, Jonathan. This 'ere's me friend Garrett. Good feller. I been travelin' wit' 'im fer awhile now. Garrett, tis Daniel, me sire, I told yer all 'bout 'im."

I smiled, a normal smile, and offered my hand. "Nice to make your acquaintance."

He looked me up and down, and then shook my hand. "A Yankee, Daniel? And a soldier? My, you have changed. How did he ever convince you to leave that lovely plot of land of yours and fight? And with the Americans, no less. Still holding that old enmity against my country? We stay out of your affairs now, from what I hear."

He was grinning now, letting me know that his statements were in good humor. I had no reason to take them otherwise.

"It's been thirty years. Couldn't expect me ter wait ferever." There was the slightest amount of betrayal in Danny's voice.

"Now, now, I did come back, in the early 1930's. I assumed you would never want to leave. I guess I was wrong. Shall we?" he asked, gesturing towards the town. "I do so prefer the human conventions, as you may recall Danny."

"What place is this?" I asked, curious now that we were actually going to enter it.

"Why, I believe it is called Wyszkow. Not that it matters much. All of these places were so devastated by the war and the concentration camps that they are much the same." He took several steps back from the river, and then leapt across in a fluid motion, and Danny and I followed suit. We entered the town and Jonathan immediately sought out the local bar. The streets were filled with poverty and the occasional Russian soldier, and I was glad Danny and I wore nondescript jackets over our GI uniforms.

The bar was mostly empty, and Jonathan moved to one of the tables without looking at any of the staff. When a woman did approach us, he said something in Polish, placed money, rubles from the look of it, in her hand, and she left us.

"Ah, to be able to enjoy a beer. Or some whiskey. I miss alcohol," he remarked when she set three glasses of vodka in front of us. They would remain untouched, of course.

"Yes. Doesn't quite work the same in these new bodies, does it?" I replied, remembering my own experience trying to get drunk. It had not been pleasant.

"No, most definitely not. Do not fear being overheard, gentlemen. Most of these people have never even heard English spoken. Now then, gentlemen, what exactly have you been up to these last three decades?

I let Danny do the talking, and watched Jonathan's reactions. He grimaced every time the Children of the Moon were mentioned, and was astonished that we actually sought them out. He found great humor in our tales of the war, occasionally interjecting to ask questions or make observations based on his own experiences in both of the wars. He had not fought, but simply used the chaos to his advantage.

"And we caught yer scent in the south, by them mountains, and the scent o' the wolf, and we followed, and decided ter find yeh and see what yeh knew 'bout it, so we could decide how ter best find ther beast," Danny finished.

"So I understand this correctly, you have spent the last forty years, besides your two years in the war, searching for the most dangerous monster on the planet, second only to the Volturi when it comes to danger for our kind. Not only do you not run from it, but once we are done here you intend to return to the trail and confront it, to attempt, at gravest peril, to kill it. My God, Daniel, what the hell has this vampire done to you?" Jonathan tried to keep his voice light, but his face was a mask of concern and fear.

"I told yeh, what they say about them Yanks don't do 'em justice. This one 'ere is the craziest vampire yeh'll ever meet. I seen 'im drop five thousand feet and not pull 'is 'chute. I seen 'im go after a vampire in France with little more than a 'ow do yeh do. If even 'alf o' the stories 'e's told me are true, then that ain't even the wildest stuff. It's all pretty damn fun, ter be honest," he was grinning as he spoke, but I made no move to reply.

"Yes, he is crazy and it's fun," Jonathan said after a moment, nodding, not taking his eyes from me. He stared at me, and I stared back at him, and neither of our expressions changed.

"Well then," he said after another moment of appraisal, "you are correct, there was a Child of the Moon after me yesterday. In case you haven't noticed, it is daylight now. He has one more night left of the full moon and then he will disappear until the next cycle. He caught the scent of a kill in the mountains, and then tracked me. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to catch on to him and hide my scent two days ago, and then get in front of him during the daylight. He caught my scent again last night, and tried to run me down – which he can do, I might point out – but I made it to daylight, and here we are. My intention was to make my way to the lake district in the north before nightfall and wait in the water until the last night of the full moon was over, then get the hell out of Poland."

"Why does it track you?" I asked.

"When it is a wolf, its mind does not work like ours does, or even like any predator. It does not flee from danger, it seeks to destroy anything that might be a danger to it. You could say that it considers itself the highest step of evolution, though I highly doubt that its brain functions in such a way. We are the only species that can kill it, or we used to be, before these humans and their giant bombs. It is the nature of the beast to destroy any vampire it contacts." His voice was full of warning.

"Are there many more of them?" I was very curious.

"There used to be. The Volturi hunt them down whenever they catch wind of them. One of the elders, Caius, helps to hunt them down himself. He hates them very much."

"Caius? I have heard of the Volturi, but I know little about them beyond how dangerous they are, and that they uphold our one rule." I really wasn't as interested in the Volturi, but since he'd brought them up.

"Caius is one of the three elder Volturi. The elders and their wives almost never actually enforce the rules. They do not want to put themselves in danger. They have a complement of guards with special powers that do their bidding. So it is strange that Caius would take such a personal interest." Jonathan was a far more knowledgeable vampire than even Mary.

"'Ow does 'e…do they, kill ther Children?" Danny took the question out of my mouth.

"Our venom can kill them, if we can get close enough to bite, which is unlikely. Silver has the same effect. When the Volturi approach them as wolves, they use silver spears and projectiles. But mostly, the Volturi track them in human form. Then they can be killed like most humans. Though they are stronger and more resistant, even then. Gentlemen, I would advise very much against this path. The Children are the fiercest creatures I have ever encountered, and I have been alive a lot longer than either of you. Centuries longer than yourself, Garrett. Their teeth destroy our flesh just as our own teeth, and their claws have the same effect. Except we do not heal from the wound. They are faster than we are, and they know only one thing. How to kill. This creature will destroy you." He was looking only at me again.

"Shall we go then?" I asked, standing from the table and ignoring his serious face. I did not wait for Danny, but simply walked out of the bar and into the street. I heard them follow. We returned to the other side of the river.

"I mean to fight this thing, Danny. If you wish to stay with Jonathan, well, I actually think that you should. But I have sought this creature for thirty years, and I do not mean to stop when it is so close."

"I'm with yeh. I ain't come this far ter run away now," he replied. I wished he wouldn't grin like that.

"Garrett, a private moment, please." Jonathan turned and walked east on the river, away from us, assuming I would follow. Which I did. When he was sure Danny could not hear us, he turned and faced me.

"He is but a boy still Garrett. He would follow you anywhere. You will get him killed if you do this. I have seen suicidal vampires before. If you want to kill yourself, then do it, but do not drag Daniel into your destruction as well. I feel responsible for him. You seem to have no such feeling." He was angry. I probably would have fought him, had I not been so preoccupied with the wolf.

"I would ask you to stop him, then. I do not want him to go, but every man is free to do as he wishes. Convince him not to come with me." I did not want Danny to die either.

"Very well," he replied, and we turned back.

Danny had already left ahead of us. I looked at the sky, as the sun dipped below to the horizon. The full moon was already out.


	24. 21 DAMAGE 1822

21

**21. DAMAGE (1822)**

The flames licked my bare arms and chest, singeing my body. But the wall came down with little force, and I was within the tiny cottage. I moved immediately to a spot where the fire had not reached, and did my best to douse the flames from my body. Only then did I assess the situation.

The fire climbed the wood around me and above me. The ceiling would not last more than a moment. The heavy smoke made it impossible to find William's scent, and as it billowed in front of me, I could not rely on my eyesight. So I stretched my hearing, ignoring sounds of the collapsing house, hoping that William might scream or give some other indication of where he was. The voice that I heard shocked me.

"We're trapped. The way I entered collapsed behind me." Ah, God, what had Susan done!

"We'll find a way," William told her. "There is always a way."

Yes, there most certainly was.

I barreled toward their voices. Wood and flame would not keep me from them. I crashed through a wall and the flames burned anew, and I realized that I had hastened the collapse of the house.

"Garrett!" Susan exclaimed.

William's arms were injured. The vampire, Steven, had cut them before he burned the place. They were ragged and unusable, only just beginning to heal. His pain was evident in his face. Susan's expression went from triumph to horror.

"Garrett?"

I looked down at myself. The lower half of my body was engulfed in flames, and my arms were on fire as well. I said nothing and moved to them, clutched their bodies to my chest. Susan was screaming in protest, but William was barely aware of his surroundings. I lowered my head, tucking them beneath me. I did not feel pain. They weighed nothing. I pushed with my legs, as hard as I could, projected myself forward, spinning mid air so that my head and back would bear the full force of the wall.

And we were outside.

I released them immediately and ran, screaming, every one of senses, my smell, hearing, eyesight, even taste, searching for only one thing. I needed water.

I had no idea how long I ran. Seconds, minutes, it meant nothing. The only thing that meant anything was when I finally heard the sound that I was looking for. A splash, water moving. Exactly what I needed. I dove into the creek from hundreds of yards away, judging the distance by sound. It was shallow, perhaps two feet, and my body dug into the mud of the bed of the creek. I rolled myself immediately, covering myself in mud and water, until I was sure that the flames were out. Then I simply lay on my back and let the cooling water run over me.

I opened my eyes after a few minutes. My face was still underwater, but I could see above me. I stared at the sky and felt my body heal itself, or at least my skin. I would not have much hair left on my arms or legs, though I was relatively certain that Susan and William's bodies had covered my chest, and that my lost tricolor had left me with hair on my head. I could feel strands of it brushing my shoulders, pulled by the running water.

I was still dazed, too dazed to comprehend that a figure stood above me. It was only when I felt something, a boot, pressing against my shoulder, under the water, that my mind cleared. The boot pressed hard, and my shoulder cracked. I pushed my head out of the water, and saw the face clearly. Steven stood atop me.

His boot moved to my other shoulder and broke it as well. I screamed in pain. He punched me hard in the face, and then moved to my knees, stomping and cracking until my legs were useless. He grabbed my hands and pulled my arms above me, not allowing the shoulders to set. He went about cracking my wrists as he pulled them together.

He dragged me by the arms, pulling me along the creek.

XXX

I had not slept, but I was not completely aware, either. I knew only one feeling. Pain. Excruciating torment.

He would not allow any of my bones to set. Every time a knee or a shoulder began to heal, he would stop to re-break it. He continued to pull me along the creek, which deepened until it was a full stream. Hiding our scent, I could only guess.

And then the pain was worse.

He pulled me out of the water, hours, perhaps days, later. I had no idea how many times he'd broken my bones. I'd lost count. He propped my body against a tree, my arms lying limp and lifeless. He was hunched over my legs. I heard tearing before I felt it.

He ripped my right leg from my body below the knee with his teeth.

Ignoring my screams, he did the same to my left. He threw the stumps away, and then crouched in front of me.

"Well, that was easy," he said as he peered at my face. "Just one threat to your woman and your friend, and you decide to be heroic. Damned fool."

I stopped screaming long enough to pull my head up and look at him. His eyes were only faintly crimson. He had not fed for at least a week.

He stood up, placed his boot on my right elbow, and broke it, then did the same with my left. Then he stepped away from me, and waited for my screams to abate.

I looked at my deformed legs. I was completely naked, the fire having burned away all remnants of my clothing, and I could see my broken body clearly. The limbs he had casually tossed aside were still moving, twenty feet away.

"Not to worry, you won't be getting those back," he commented, following my eyes.

"You really don't know what you brought down upon yourself, Garrett," he continued. I doubted if he cared that I was listening. "I was a vicious creature for hundreds of years." His accent was…changing. No longer New England. Like the Hessians, Von Steuben, his English was harsh, guttural. The accent was German. "I hunted and killed anything and everything. I tortured humans and vampires alike, as you do now.

"I killed everything in my path and enjoyed every second. But when the killing was over, I found myself longing for something else. So I decided I needed a companion." He was pacing in front of me. I guessed he was talking more to himself than to me.

"And so I changed Francis, in the 1580's, and he was more than I could dream. Friend, companion, mate, lover. We shared everything for over two centuries. Scoured London during the Great Fire. Now _that_ was a wonderful time. If only I could return to 1666. I really have no desire to be here, alone with you. You disgust me." He looked at me then, and his eyes were burning like the flames that had recently engulfed me.

He stepped toward me, and brought his boot down hard on my left hand. I heard more cracking, and I was screaming again.

"Francis was the better part of me," he continued when my screams became gasps. "I was not as malevolent a creature when he was with me. He made me a better man and a better vampire. He appreciated culture, sophistication. He wanted to see plays, and art, to appreciate the more human parts of our nature. What a wonderful creature he…was."

He approached me again, and I waited for something else, but he simply bent his body so that his face was close to mine. "It should not have been you who killed him. He deserved so much better than a mangy American cur being his undoing. It should not have been _you_ who killed _him_," he repeated.

He stepped away again, and continued to muse. "He knew America was a mistake. No culture, no history, nothing to occupy us but death and destruction. He knew how boring your people were. It was I who insisted, who thought that the lawlessness of this land would enhance our lifestyle. How right he was. I suppose I am partially to blame for what happened. Though only a small part."

He stopped pacing again, and looked me over. "I barely enjoy this, I'll be honest. Far too easy. You are not worth even a few years of my time, much less Francis' death."

"Do…you…ever…shut…up…you…dandy…" his fist slammed hard into my chest, stopping me cold.

"Do not speak, dog. You have not earned the right." Good. I'd made him angry.

"The…fop…had…it…" his fist slammed my face, and I felt my jaw break.

"You filty, disgusting pig! Very well. You die right now." His boot kicked hard into my crotch, the worst pain since he'd torn my legs asunder.

His face moved close to mine, his teeth toward my neck. I spit all of the blood in my mouth into his face. His fist hammered my forehead back and into the tree, driving my head through the bark, and my skull cracked in two places. Blood filled my eyes, blinding me. I heard the tearing sound again, at my throat, and screamed once more. I tried to move one of my arms and hit him, but I was too weak.

"Su…san…" I gasped. Let her name be the last on my lips.

And then he was not biting me anymore. I still felt the pain of the wound, but it was not getting worse. I could no longer bring myself to care.

I could not see, but I could hear. Limbs smashed against each other, and the cracking sound I'd become so familiar with occurred again. I could not be sure, but I did not think it was my body.

A voice nearly disembodied, reached me.

"Good God, what did he do to you?"

I tried to open my eyes, but I saw nothing. There must have been blood in my ears, for the voice did not sound like Susan's.

I let the pain take me…

XXX

I was not asleep, I knew that, but I did not think that I was awake either. I was in a place between sleep and awakening. I supposed even vampires were capable of that.

"Garrett! Garrett! Can you hear me?!" A woman, screaming.

"Can we reattach them?" a man's voice, frantic as well.

"I…think so. We will have to align them so that the bones fit correctly." Another woman, calmer, but still shaken. I must have indeed been an ugly sight.

"Susan! Stop screaming and set his bones! We'll work on his legs!" the man again.

I continued to open and close my eyes, but I could see nothing. There was blood in them, not just on my face. I tried to blink, but it did not work. I felt Susan's hand against my face, brushing my cheek, and then a sharp crack as she set my jaw. I heard my scream. She moved on to my arms.

And then, suddenly, delightfully, I could feel the lower part of my right leg again. It was not whole, but I was aware of the muscles and nerves in my calf and my foot, more aware every second.

My bones began setting in my arms, and the hands moved to my head, refitting the pieces of my skull. And the haze over my eyes was less, my vision clouded by blood, red and hazy instead of completely blind. I felt the lower part of my left leg now, as I'd felt the right. I saw human forms moving around me.

"Did…you…kill…?" I murmured.

"Don't try to talk, Garrett." Susan's voice. I could not believe I was hearing it again.

"No, I did not kill him." I recognized the other voice now.

"Then I'd…better…" Susan's fingers were on my lips, trying to stop me from talking. I ignored her. My vision cleared enough to see the three faces in front of me.

"Heal," I continued, "So we can…find that…son of a bitch." I was glad to see another familiar face.

"Good timing…Mary." I tried as hard as I could to form a smile.


	25. 22 FOOLHARDY 1948

22

**22. FOOLHARDY (1948)**

"I might feel responsible for him, but I won't die for him!" Jonathan exclaimed as I moved to follow Danny.

I looked back at him with utter contempt. "You just lectured me and now you won't help?" I was incredulous.

"Vampires do not survive for over half a millennia by chasing down Children of the Moon, no matter the reason. And do not shift any of your remorse upon me. It is your fault that he is here. When he dies, it will be on your shoulders." His expression went from guilt to anger, and then settled on indignity.

"Very well, coward. Run to the lakes. Hide from the monster. Leave your offspring to die. Your son. For you are his sire. I will be responsible for him from now on." I turned away from Jonathan. I could no longer look at him. He disgusted me more than Alistair ever had.

I left him on the banks of the river, and trailed Danny's scent. We had no time for preparation now, to gather silver and find a way to use it, to form a plan of attack. I supposed we would have to rely on the fact that we would be two against one as our ally. And hopefully, if I caught up to Danny in time, the element of surprise.

I moved at full speed after him. My legs were longer than his, though I was not stronger than him. I was confident I could close the gap. He only had a head start of a minute, possibly two. We had fifty miles until we reached the trail where the wolf had changed to human. Still worried, I tried to increase my speed, to no avail.

Danny was waiting for me where the wolf trail ended, and the human that it had become went west.

"What the hell were you thinking!" I roared as soon as I reached him.

"That Jonathan didn't want me ter go, and that yeh agreed wit' 'im. I weren't going ter miss this, Garrett. It's been thirty years fer me as well." His face had no fear, only confidence. "Have yeh got a plan?"

"Not really. The moon is out, so he'll be a wolf now. I say we follow the human trail and hope we smell the wolf. Once we do, we'll track it as best we can, and hope that it won't expect us to pursue it." Barely a plan at all.

"Good enough fer me," Danny replied, and he followed me after the almost cold scent of the human werewolf.

The scent was weak, and the human had not gone far. An abandoned barn only a few miles from where the scent began. The smell lingered there, covered the hay in its strange, both animal and human way, as if the human had simply come to this place and stayed.

And then the scent of the wolf, of the Child of the Moon, outside of the barn, growing with each step, until it smelled the same as when we had first tracked it. The smell was not revolting, but I had little desire to taste the beast either. I wondered how the beast reacted to our scent. I doubted it found us appealing. But, according to Jonathan, the beast desired to kill us. So perhaps not as bad as this.

The beast continued west as it had in its human form. It was only when we saw the dim lights of the city that I even guessed where it was going.

"Headed to Warsaw, it looks like," I said to Danny as we ran.

"Should've asked Jonathan if it enjoyed ther humans, I suppose. Guess we know."

The lights were closer and closer, and then, abruptly, the beast had turned, still ten miles from the outskirts of the city.

"Why do yeh suppose he did that?" Danny asked, as we turned south and followed the trail. I had no answer for him. We were in the deepest part of the night now, but the full moon was above us, unhindered by the clouds that had allowed us to enter the town earlier. Everything glowed white, and I slowed our pursuit.

"This beast is either very stupid or very smart," I said, no longer pursuing, but simply walking after the trail. A vampire walk, far faster than a human's, but still a walk.

"What do yer mean?"

"I think that it knows that we are following, and it wants us to find it. Either it is confident in its abilities, or it has underestimated us. We would have the advantage in the city. Out here, the wolf can move freely." I was very wary now. I felt strongly that this beast was smart, and that it knew how a vampire might attack it.

We followed the scent to a stand of trees, no more than a few square miles total. The beast had entered the trees.

"There is something wrong here," I observed, and crouched close to the ground, inhaling its scent.

"It don't make a lick o' sense fer 'im to go in ther." Good, Danny had caught on.

"No, it doesn't." I thought hard. What did it want? What did it expect? How could we surprise it? I was sure now that it knew we were following.

"I think it means to separate us," I finally said, after I had stared at the trees for a few minutes. "It wants us to circle the woods on both sides so that it can hunt us down individually. It knows that there are two of us." Smart. Very smart. I would have done exactly that before I'd talked to Jonathan, sent Danny west while I went east, circled the woods before moving in. The beast understood how to create a trap that was a centuries old battle tactic. Very impressive. I underestimated its intelligence at every turn. Perhaps I should stop thinking of it as a beast.

"We circle the woods to find where it came out. Together." I nodded at Danny as I stood from my crouch, hoping that my face was more confident than my mind.

We circled the woods, me near the treeline while Danny ranged further away, in case the beast, the werewolf, had somehow masked its scent for a time. We circumnavigated the woods, but found nothing. We returned to where we had started.

"I ain't got anything else," Danny said.

But something was different. The trail to the woods was stronger, when it should have been weaker.

"It waited for us. It left the way it came," I surmised. But why? Did it want to escape us? Was it laying a trap for us?

I turned toward the old trail, now new, and warily moved to return from whence we'd come. "Stay behind me, and keep your eyes open. I think it has set some sort of trap," I warned as I followed the trail.

The scent of the beast was heavy, very recent, as if it had paced the trail, covered its own scent over and over, until new and old were nearly the same. And then, a mile from the forest, the trail went cold, only the old scent remaining. And I finally knew the plan. It was a trap. But the trap was not in front of us.

The Child of the Moon leapt silently through the air, faster than anything I'd ever seen, nearly invisible to vampire eyes. I was turning towards Danny, back towards the small woods where it had waited, as it leapt, and it was upon him before I could react.

It could leap nearly a mile. An excellent trap.

The beast made no noise as it pounced, and its claws dug into Danny's chest before I'd managed even two steps toward them.

My steps became a leap as it sunk its teeth into Danny's neck, and I heard a shredding noise, both the same and different as the noise of vampire teeth on vampire skin.

The beast was horrible. It was as Danny had described. No hair, just a naked and deformed body, human flesh, stretched and distorted over the skeleton of a strange dog. It was thin and yet muscular at once, for all of the exposed flesh was muscle and tendons. The face of it was like nothing I had ever seen, as if it was a human whose jaw had grown too large, whose whole face contorted, the flesh stretched over elongated bone. The only hair on the beast was on it head, a long mane of brown hair, and between its legs, black instead of brown. Its torso was too long, more than half the length of its body. The only area where the flesh was not stretched along bone or muscle was at the chest, where the skin was not fully extended over bone.

Danny screamed, but the beast turned that scream into a more horrible gurgling sound as it ripped the flesh from his neck.

My teeth connected with its shoulder, ripping flesh from its body, as I threw everything I had the monster. I could only hope that the force of my tackle could drive it away from Danny.

The beast released him and struck me, its claws dug into the flesh of my shoulder as it tossed me away. I tasted its flesh in my mouth, its blood. The taste was disgusting. I spat and turned toward it, only to find that the beast was upon me.

Its teeth sank into my stomach, and I did the only thing that I could. I sank my own teeth into its neck. And both monsters roared in pain, but refused to let go. Its teeth did not dig deeper into my stomach, and I clutched my arms around it, gripping hard with my teeth, filling it with venom.

And then everything changed. The beast released its bite, though I still clutched its neck. And then something hit the beast, hard, and our bodies jerked from each other, our deadly embrace broken.

"Run!" a voice exclaimed, and I was pulled to my feet. Someone was dragging me, and then I found my legs and I was running, too, though I could not look away. The shape of the beast was changing. It seemed to shrink, its muscles becoming softer, its face growing smaller. Its body jerked and heaved, the structure of its bones changing. I stopped, awestruck, and someone was dragging me away, but I could not divert my eyes. The beast was no longer thin and muscular. As it shrank in some places, it grew in others, and it became increasingly more human in front of my eyes.

Whoever carried me let me fall, and I was no longer looking at the beast. Instead, I saw the first rays of the sun over the horizon.

I looked back, and caught a final glimpse of it before it disappeared. I was shocked by what I saw.

XXX

Jonathan and I approached Danny's body, fearing what we would see. But his face was as it always was. Innocent. Except it no longer held his happy grin.

"Daniel, I am so sorry," Jonathan whispered.

Jonathan had not fled, but he had waited until dawn to intervene. And Danny had died. I wanted very much to blame Jonathan. But the fault was mine. Yet another I had destroyed. I had killed too many vampires in my life. Too many humans as well. And those I had not killed, I drove away. Nothing good could ever come of being near me.

"Garr..," Danny rasped, and I was by his side.

"Nnnnn…worth…it…"

We lit him on fire as soon as we could. His neck could not heal from the bite of the wolf. My own shoulder and gut would never heal either. Less than I deserved, to wear the scars of my human life on my vampire body. All I deserved was death. Yet death kept eluding me.

Jonathan insisted on lighting the pyre himself. I would never know whether the hunt was worth it for Danny or not. Jonathan refused to speak to me, and left as soon as the flames engulfed Danny's body. His course was southwesterly, though I knew not where. Myself, I went west, to Warsaw.

The beast was a human woman now. And her scent led me west. I had twenty five days to wait while she was in human form, until the werewolf returned.

Hopefully, it would kill me.

_Author's Note #1: If the few people who are actually reading this have noticed some similarities to other media, you aren't wrong. The last five chapters have referenced everything from __Saving Private Ryan__ and __Band of Brothers__ to Wolverine from the X-Men comics, and, of course, __Lost__, as well as a whole lot of dialogue from __Jaws__ and an entire chapter based on the __Angel__ episode "Damage", which was actually the basis for almost the entirety of this story, or at least the idea that started it, thus the chapter title. I also borrowed some of that chapter from the James Bond book and movie __Casino Royale__. I bring my love of all of these stories to my own fanfiction, and borrow from them because they are so good._

_Author's Note #2: This story has become increasingly more violent as it's gone along. Although I do not find written violence to be particularly disturbing, and don't think that the language or sexual content of the text has surpassed the level of someone between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, if anyone who is actually reading this story feels that it has become inappropriate, then I will be happy to change the rating to "M" instead of "T+"._


	26. 23 DECISIONS 1822 TO 1828

Author's Note: I know I've had a lot of these notes, so bear with me

_Author's Note: I know I've had a lot of these notes, so bear with me. I'm having a really hard time writing the 19__th__ century coven chapters right now. All I want to do is rush to the five or six chapters of this part of the story that bring everything to a head. I sat in from of my computer for about forty-five minutes starting and re-starting this chapter. And then I decided to make it a crazy microcosm of the story as a whole, and suddenly it was fun again. Obviously, it owes, as the whole story does, a great deal to __Lost__, especially the season four episode "The Constant", my favorite episode of that show ever. I should also point out inspiration from Bret Easton Ellis' __American Psycho__, the first story I ever read where the author suddenly changed the entire format from one chapter to another. If the non-linear nature of this chapter is annoying, well, it was fun to write (shout out to reader/reviewer JulyPie). Also, reader/reviewer Missie pointed out some mistakes in the last chapter which have been corrected, so thanks for that. Anyway, this chapter is completely different from all the others. I doubt I'll repeat the format, but it was a lot of fun._

**23. DECISIONS (1822-1828)**

APPOINTMENT PART I (1828)

I would not be late.

My legs carried me at top speed, but not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. I pictured him in my mind, Steven, my adversary. I had not seen him in six years, but would never, could never, forget him.

He was a villain, to me, though he did not see himself as such. I supposed that Laertes could not envision himself a villain either. In truth, he was only one villain of many. In truth, Hamlet was as much a villain as anyone but Claudius. How much I identified with Hamlet's tortured soul. Even though I had none to be tortured.

I was a villain. I could be honest. But Steven was worse. I convinced myself of that. No poison tipped sword or poison laced wine would kill Steven, as it would not kill me. But if I was to die today, he would die with me.

CONVINCING (1825)

I clutched Susan close to me, my naked body held tight against hers, adjusting the contours of my body to fit with the contours of hers. I pressed my face into the back of her head and breathed as deeply as I could. How I loved her smell. With the exception of her breath, and her neck, it was always most potent when I inhaled the fresh breeze of her hair.

And that was exactly what it was like, a fresh breeze. When I closed my eyes and concentrated on her fragrance, it was as if the two of us lay in a huge field of daisies, both yellow and white, the colors intermingling on the backdrop of the green grass. The sunlight was all around us, glinting softly off of her perfect skin, and off of mine.

The vision flashed from one form to another. In the first, we were both human. Her skin was faintly tanned and lightly freckled. The freckles were barely visible unless one was looking for them, unless one was lucky enough that Susan allowed them to be that close. I was amazed that I was so lucky. The gold of her hair, more lovely than any gold jewelry that had ever been crafted, seemed to drink the sunlight, as did her creamy skin. My own body, taught and wiry, covered thinly in sandy hair, on my chest, my arms, my legs, with its bruises and scars, was not worthy of hers. I rubbed my calloused hands gently along her arm, from her shoulder to her hand, and then I let the back of my fingers trace the nape of her neck, down her spine, until they settled on the small of her back. She turned to look at me, and I lost myself in the depths of her green eyes, an impossibly lovely shade of green

The vision…flickered. We were vampires now. The sun reflected off of our skin, its rays bouncing in a thousand different directions. My fingers were still on the small of her back. Her skin was completely white, without the barest hint of the freckles she'd once had. Everything around us, the multicolored daisies, the grass, the sunlight, was the same. Only we were different. I saw myself again, no longer bruised and scarred, except at my neck, and my shoulder, and my knees, where the bite marks somehow managed to gleam brighter in the sunlight than our skin. I was more beautiful now, but still unworthy of her. She was still looking at me, but her eyes were crimson and black instead of green. Still lovely, but the only one of her features that was not enhanced by our new nature. She should not have the same eyes as me. But her golden hair was even more vivid and lovely in the sun, and I lost myself again in the scent.

"Garrett."

I opened my eyes. We lay naked in a room, shadows dancing across our skin from the nearby fire. Her eyes were crimson and black, and the fire was reflected in them.

"Yes, love?"

"Promise me that you will not go after the vampire alone." Her expression was full of concern.

"I promise." I could deny her nothing.

APPOINTMENT PART II (1828)

I would not allow William and Mary to accompany me. The danger was far too great. And Steven had insisted I come alone.

I wished that they were with me, though. William was not always the best of companions, but I knew that he cared about me, loved me in his way.

And Mary was…the enigma. I felt that I knew her better than anyone else, even William, but I still knew nothing about her. Beautiful and clever, knowledgeable and secretive, deeply in love with William, incredibly intuitive about me. And always there at the exact time when we needed her.

Yes, I wished they were with me. But they could not be. I had to face Steven alone.

RECONSTRUCTED (1822)

"How do you feel? Mary asked.

I was so engrossed in the kill that I hadn't noticed her approach. I did not respond until I had drained the body completely. I needed the sustenance.

"Different, and the same. I don't feel weaker than I did before he tortured me, if that is what you mean. Just as though my body is slightly…off from what it once was." I wiped the remaining blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

It had taken a day for the wounds to fully heal, for my neck to close and my legs to function as before. There was something shocking about experiencing such pain as a vampire. It was not worse than the burning of the transformation. But it was more visceral. My increased senses, the increased capacity of my brain, allowed me to experience pain in ways that my human mind and human body never could. It had not hurt more than the burning, yet I was more aware of it, while he was torturing me and as I'd healed.

"My wrist has never been quite the same, either. Every once in a while, I remember the feeling of when it was a phantom, when I knew it was gone but still imagined it was there," Mary said.

Yes, that was it, exactly the case. I caught myself in moments when I was surprised I was standing, for I knew my legs had been removed, though I could still feel them. And then I would look down and remember that they had returned. Trust Mary to know exactly what I meant.

"I don't think I need the extra hunting anymore." Since I'd recovered, we, or I should say I, hunted far more often than usual, every couple days. I felt very weak after the ordeal, and Mary told me that the hunt had helped her recover from the reattachment of her hand. So we'd spent a month simply finding safe places for me to kill.

"I think I'm ready to go after Steven."

APPOINTMENT PART III (1828)

I was close now. I could smell the river. It was only a matter of minutes.

Steven's scent was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. He did not smell feminine, the way his mate Francis had, the way William did. He smelled like freshly turned soil, as if I stood in a field that a farmer was preparing for his annual crop. He faintly smelled metallic, as well, as if I could smell the scythe used to shear corn, or the plow that had driven through the dirt.

I could not even think about the other scent that I followed.

UNTRACEABLE (1824)

"We've been at this for two years, Garrett. I don't think we're going to find him unless he wants to be found." William was frustrated, and I could not blame him.

We had crisscrossed the eastern seaboard, but we had not found even a whiff of Steven's scent since we'd lost his already cold trail from my torture site. It was the same as when we'd searched for Mary, as if he had simply disappeared.

Now there was an idea.

"I need to talk to Mary," I told William brusquely, and then turned away from him. He did not deserve such treatment, but I was frustrated as well.

Mary had refused to tell us anything about her disappearance. If she'd spoken about it privately to William, he had not mentioned it to either myself or Susan. I often guessed certain things about Mary, but I could not guess what had driven her away for eight years, nor the reason for her return. Well, I supposed I knew a little about why she'd returned.

Mary and Susan were speaking quietly in the master bedroom that Susan and I shared at the house in Albany. I was sure Mary wished that she and William would share the larger bedroom, but they did not need the accommodations as much as we did. William's desires for her were only fleeting. I needed Susan whenever we had a spare moment.

"Mary? A word?" I knew it was rude to interrupt, but I hoped very much that she could give me a fresh idea on how to find Steven.

She joined me in the hall. I did not really care if Susan overheard.

"You eluded the three of us for eight years - " I started, before she cut me off.

"I'm not going to tell you why I left," she snapped. I guessed she'd grown tired of this question.

"Not that. I wanted to know how you managed to hide from us for so long." I smiled, hoping to convince her to at least divulge that secret.

She sighed, and then described how she'd masked her scent, leaving out any details about where she might have been. The key was always water. There seemed to be little else that could hide us from our own kind. She'd travelled through rivers, occasionally in the ocean or a lake, and all of her kills had been beside some sort of body of water. She'd done this for six years, until she was sure we no longer pursued her. This seemed a very uncomfortable way to live. She'd been very determined that we not find her.

And so I changed our pursuit of Steven, and we traced the shores of all the major rivers, the Hudson and the Potomac, the Delaware and the James.

It was when I decided that we either needed to trace the Mississippi or travel the Atlantic that all three revolted. They had not experienced my pain. They did not know my need to find him. They did not share my obsession.

"Very well, I'll go after him myself."

APPOINTMENT PART IV (1828)

I had never desired a second homecoming. I usually let William or Mary enter my home when we tried to trace Steven. The memories of my city were bitter.

But Steven had led me here. I approached the city from the north, following his trail. I never wished to see it again, but Steven had forced my hand.

Philadelphia glinted below me, hugging the Delaware. I made out the State House, still the tallest building in the city. I remembered fondly when Susan and I had been there, a lifetime ago, when only Susan and the cause had meant anything to me. I saw city hall next to it, thought I could even make out her family home nearby with my vampire eyes.

My city. I dreaded very much this second homecoming. It might be worse than the first.

MESSAGE (1828)

I hunted alone today. Susan had begged off, saying she wished to catch up on her reading. I was so glad that she was reading Shakespeare. And she'd actually seemed to enjoy _Hamlet_. I hoped she would like _Macbeth_ just as much. Though she insisted that _Romeo and Juliet_, which she'd read when she was human, could not be bettered. No accounting for taste, even with my lady love. At least William thought _Othello _was the best of his plays. That assessment I could live with.

I could not be sure whether I was in Canada or America. I had crossed the St. Lawrence, but I knew that land south and east of the river was still part of Lower Canada. I guessed that I was in Canada only because most of the humans that I overheard spoke French. I was even beginning to understand the language. It was prettier than English, I supposed, but I did not find it as expressive.

The English were far more tolerant of savages here, unlike the eastern parts of America. I could still enjoy a good hunt of my favorite prey. I very much wished that we could go west, to the Indian areas of the United States, but Susan had a taste for staying in homes, buying clothes, and other human affectations, and she sided with William, who kept us close to society. They had stayed in Quebec while I ranged. Drinking from city folk was deeply unsatisfying.

As I tracked a savage through the woods, moving east of the river, I thought about the hunt that I had lost. I still longed to find Steven, but that trail was cold. We had looked for years, and I could not blame my companions for tiring of the search. I sincerely hoped that I could randomly cross his trail. Then they would not be able to argue with me. Then we could all go looking for him again. I would not break my promise to Susan, though I very much wanted to find him myself, to continue the hunt. Even tracking this savage was nothing compared to the possible thrill of finding Steven and destroying him.

I thought briefly of the torture he had inflicted on me, and grimaced. Someday.

I was ready to move in for the kill when I heard them behind me. Why would Mary and William be out here, but not Susan? Why would they leave her alone?

I broke off and waited for them to approach. William led, and Mary followed. They seemed wary of me.

"What is it? Where is Susan?" I was very confused. William's face was reticent. Mary looked worried. Suddenly, I was worried too.

"Garrett…" William whispered my name. He could not continue. He held a piece of parchment out to me.

I took it from him and read it quickly. And then I reread it. Twice. Once I'd memorized it, I tore it to shreds.

"Stay here. Under no circumstances should you follow."

"But we can help you. We wanted to go immediately, but we felt you should decide. You cannot do this alone. We love her, too." Mary's face was even more worried than before. William's expression was one of pain.

"Do not follow!" I shouted, and left them.

APPOINMENT PART V (1828)

The city still smelled familiar as I entered. I had never lived on the northern side of Philadelphia, and had little reason to spend time there, but it was much the same as the southern part of the city, populated with workers on docks very similar to where I had worked in my human life.

Steven's scent moved straight south on Broad Street, directly into center city. His path had not deviated. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. I had a few guesses myself.

My feeling of apprehension grew with each stride. The humans could not see me, would not have been able to see me, even in daylight, for I moved to fast.

How should I approach? Should I scout his location, or simply show myself? I supposed that having our confrontation in the open was the best.

I needed to be sure that he was concentrating on me.

IRRATIONAL (1822)

"What the devil were you thinking going in after him!" I could not comprehend Susan's stupidity. My shouts made my body tremble, and reawakened the pain. I groaned, unable to stop myself.

Mary had suggested that we remain at my torture site until I was fully healed, to ensure we did not exacerbate the wounds. I very much wanted to leave, but, as always, we took her advice. Still, the smell was awful. Mary and William had left to track down Steven, and I needed some answers from Susan.

"I was behind you, and I thought you would have to fight the other vampire when I saw him in clearing. I was trying to help." Her tone was placating.

"Never put yourself in danger. I can only be sane when I know that you are safe." Please, God, let her hear me.

"I am a vampire, too. I don't always need your protection!" She was indignant now.

"You are the single most important thing in the world. You're the reason that the sun rises and sets, love. Susie, I cannot live without you." She made a face at the pet name. She did not like it.

"And you think I want you to leap into burning buildings, Garrett? I'd rather you tried to stay safe as well. I wish you'd stop trying to find ways to put yourself in danger."

Her words struck a chord. I was always trying to find ways to put myself in danger. But my safety was not the point.

"Promise you will not be so foolish ever again. Promise me." My voice went from a demand to a plea.

"Will you promise me the same?" Her eyes were hopeful. But I could not make promises I could not keep. I was going to find Steven. And that would be very dangerous. So I said nothing.

"Very well," she huffed, and left me to my own thoughts.

It was only a few minutes before William approached and knelt beside me.

"Woman troubles?" he asked, and he wore his familiar smirk.

"She's impossible," I sighed.

"I'm sure you two will work it out." William's voice brimmed with confidence. Then his smirk was gone, and he stared at me seriously.

"I want to…thank you, Garrett. You did not know that Susan was in the cottage when you went in. I have wronged you in the past, and for you to do what you did for me…" he trailed off.

"Would you not do the same for me?" I asked.

"I do not know. I suppose I could only find out if the situation arose again. Though apparently Mary would, given her attack of that Boston bastard." He tried to make the situation lighter.

"Actually, he was German. Accent was fake. And you're welcome." I hoped my grin was enough to put him at ease.

"Feel better soon, Garrett. This life would not be nearly as much fun without you."

"Don't worry," I replied, "I have another vampire to kill."

APPOINTMENT PART VI (1828)

I remembered Steven's note one more time as I approached the Kelly home, though I did not know if it was the Kelly home any longer. But it was where the scent had led.

"_She smells lovely. I understand the appeal. If you would follow me, please. Alone, obviously_." He had not bothered to sign it. Nor did he need to.

I'd returned to the house we occupied in Quebec, and immediately recognized his scent. I hated to smell Susan's scent intermingled with his. I could not imagine two scents that belonged together less. I tracked the two of them for over a day, from the lovely city with its marvelous castle over the St. Lawrence to my old home, the place I'd abandoned, with good reason.

Susan's old house was much the same as when I'd left, though it was deteriorating in a few places. Still, the tree that I'd climbed still stood, and the same branch neared her old window.

"'My hour is almost come, when I to sulphrous and tormenting flames, must render up myself.'" I whispered. The ghost seemed an appropriate character to quote.

There was no reason not to use the tree again.


	27. 24 VILLAIN 1955

24

_Author's Note #1: If you're a regular reader, you probably already read the old Chapter 24, Innocence (27 on ). Unlike the last time I pulled a chapter, this is completely different. I loved the old chapter so much, and had so many story ideas from it, that I decided that I would actually make it its own story. Thus Midnight Moon was born, my story within Forever Night. It takes place between Chapter 22, Foolhardy, and this chapter of Forever Night, Chapter 24, so between 1948 and 1954. It is formatted differently than Forever Night because the time jumps aren't necessary (it's much more like the Twilight saga in format), a story within a story. I hope, when I finish it (and it won't be anywhere near as long as Forever Night) that it will further expand Garrett's, or at least my Garrett's, character. If you want to read it, please do (the first chapter is a revision of the old Chapter 24 that was here). I just had a ton of ideas for the Child of the Moon that couldn't fit within the structure of Forever Night (I never could have continued the time jumps, which was unacceptable). If you don't want to read it, well, references to it will be oblique at but present. So enjoy this new chapter, which is actually just replacing an old chapter, but completely different._

_Author's Note #2: I had to erase the old Chapter 24 Author's Note about my Glasgow gaffe, so I wanted to include it here: Thanks to reader/reviewer JuliePie, a native of Glasgow, for pointing out another mistake. In Chapter 20, I described the Scots accent, from Glasgow in particular, as being particularly hard to understand for an American. Once again, I was lazy. I simply looked up Scottish English on Wikipedia, saw Glasgow Patter, and threw that line into the story. In truth, I have never been to Scotland, and the few Scots I met during my semester abroad in London were no more difficult to understand than the Irish I met in Dublin. In fact, I never had trouble conversing with them, though it was slightly harder than with the English people I befriended. The worst part? The whole paragraph was only included because I spent that entire five months struggling through Irvine Welsh's __Trainspotting__, a book that may as well be written in another language if you are an American born and raised in New Jersey five miles outside of Philadelphia. Only I love that book and the movie, which is also at times bewildering. And I knew that it takes place in, and the characters are from, Edinburgh. I'm a dumbass._

**24. VILLAIN (1954)**

The _SS United States _had left from Portsmouth in Cornwall only four days earlier, and yet we were nearing the end of our voyage. Only one day until I would finally return to America. I had been in Europe for close to forty years. I wondered how my old country would greet me. Would it feel familiar? Or had I been gone too long, had America moved on without me? The country had changed so drastically in the years leading up to the Great War, with so much new technology and industry, wave upon wave of immigrants from Europe and around the world. And who could blame them? But was it my America any longer?

I'd seen pictures of course, of the massive skyscrapers of New York City, a horizon I would soon see for myself. I rather liked the photographs of the Chrysler Building more than the Empire State Building, thought the architecture was lovelier, but I had to give credit those men behind the Empire State Building. To hide their spire within until the Chrysler Building was complete, just to ensure they would have the world's tallest building? Ingenious.

I'd seen the beginnings of the skyscrapers as I'd gone through London on my way to Ireland, but they were nothing like the photographs of New York. I'd also heard that the skyline of Chicago was becoming massive. I'd always liked Chicago. Perhaps I could travel there. I had nowhere else to go. Well, unless I followed Jonathan's suggestion and Siobhan's advice. I was curious, but perhaps I might be inspired to find a new way of life.

But did I deserve it? Did I deserve anything good in my life? Why couldn't I just die? Why couldn't the Volturi have killed me and been done with it? Why did I keep surviving when everyone else I knew, everyone else I loved, either died or left me?

I needed to stop tormenting myself with questions, but the images flickered before my eyes, the faces of all the people that I'd loved and lost. I saw Susan, human, her green eyes and freckles, peering out from behind her father that first day we'd met. I saw William, so much of me in his face, of the man I had been years earlier, trusting me to get him through the war. Mary, my sire, her held tilted slightly, looking into my eyes, somehow knowing all of my secrets. Susan, a vampire now, the two of us together, naked in each others arms, a perfect embrace, stone against stone, making the other stone feel soft. William, laughing delightedly as he killed his first vampire, experiencing the same joy that I had. Danny, grinning widely, sticking out his hand to greet me, the most beautiful countryside I'd ever seen surrounding us, the Atlantic spreading to the west. Sabine…that was too new, too fresh. I shook my head, forcing the memories into a small corner of my vast mind.

And then all of those that I'd fought, some that I'd killed, vampire and human both. Redcoats, their faces twisted in shock as the bayonet planted in their gut or as I fired upon them point blank. The mother and daughter in that cottage the first night, the father already dead next to them, when I knew it was wrong, but could not stop myself as I'd caught their scent. The Indians, so many that I'd hunted and killed, until I'd learned to respect and even love them, formidable human hunters that they were, always dying with dignity. William's hunting trip with me, as I fed on the husband and watched him drink the boy, the broken necks of mother and daughter with flames licking around them after Mary had cleaned up. Susan's body as William crouched over it, the damage already done. Her first kill, her face confused, looking so sexy, reawakening my human desires. Francis' head, surrounded by flames, his body torn asunder. Susan and I, feeding together on the same body, her strange intimacy afterwards. Steven, with Susan behind him, her face scared, his full of malice. More soldiers, Federales, though they were not known as such then, and Confederates. And vampires, so many vampires, in those cruel and heady days in the South, in Texas and Mexico and even South America, and in Europe as well. Too many vampires to count. So many that I could no longer picture all of their faces.

I heard the bouncing ball as it rolled toward me where I was perched against the rail on the aft of the great liner, the fastest ship ever assembled, holding the Blue Riband for crossings both east and west on the Atlantic from its maiden voyage, and looked out over the vast ocean, nothing else in sight but the dark water in the faded sun of twilight behind me. It went through the rails, plunging toward the ocean, and, without thinking, I leaned quickly, far too quickly for human eyes, and caught the ball in my left hand.

"How did you do that?" a small voice inquired, the accent Irish, and I turned to look at the boy, his hand outstretched for the ball, only a few feet away. I crouched in front of him and held my arm outward, and he took a step forward. I dropped the ball into his hand. His face looked astonished and terrified all at once, and I tried to put him at ease.

"You have to stay healthy, lad, and train your body. I fought in the war, and my reflexes are excellent now," I smiled at him, careful not to show my teeth. "Would you like me to show you a game?" I asked, hoping my voice was light and unthreatening.

"My parents say I shouldn't play with strangers," he said meekly, and averted his eyes from mine.

"You are very wise to listen to your parents," I sighed. "You never know what kind of monster you might find." Yes, just talking to the boy was wrong.

"Danny? Danny!" a woman's voice exclaimed, and I cringed at the name, the pleasant mask of my features breaking. The woman rushed up to us and wrapped her son in her arms. She looked at me with fear and revulsion. Her husband was right behind her, and he moved protectively between his family and me.

"I'm glad you got your ball back, Danny," I whispered, and turned back to the rail. The ocean was black now. I heard the family move slowly away, and then the lights on the ship rose, so that even my vampire eyes were hindered in seeing the vast Atlantic anymore. As I moved back towards the ship, I saw myself. My clothes were well worn, not washed recently. My eyes were darkening with hunger, for I had not fed since three days before I boarded the ship, my decision to return home spontaneous. Dark circles had begun to appear beneath my eyes as well. And the mask I hoped I'd worn when I spoke to the boy was gone. I was an alien creature. There was clearly something wrong with me. I was the monster. The villain.

XXX

We disembarked at Ellis Island. I would later hear that we were one of the last ships to do so, for the immigration point closed in November of the same year. I took the ferry to Lower Manhattan and found myself standing at the South Street Seaport. I'd simply flashed past the immigration lines and leapt onto the ferry. The skyline was everything that I'd hoped for, and yet it was not. It was an incredible marvel, these amazing buildings. How industrious humanity was, to create such spectacles. And yet it was not the New York that I knew, that I both loved and hated. This was a different city. I heard dozens of languages around me, saw people from every part of the globe. I felt…old

I fed immediately, finding a vagrant on the street, and then pick pocketed a wealthy looking couple and found a meager rooming house on Canal Street. I could not believe the sights around me. Everywhere there were Chinese with shops and stalls and businesses, come halfway across the world to find work here in America. And motor cars surrounded us, much moreso than in Europe, clogging the streets, the fumes from the engines smelling filthy to my nose. And there were people, so many people I could hardly believe it, packed tightly into this small island, millions and millions of them.

I stayed for a month, tracking the city for vampire scents, especially the area around Columbia University, hoping I might find these vampires that Jonathan had mentioned, that Siobhan knew well. I rather liked the idea of being friends with vampires rather than always trying to kill them. I'd seen too much of that.

They stayed to the north, these vampires Jonathan and Siobhan described, trying to live as far from the sunlight as they could. We had been such fools to go south. Why hinder our lifestyle by only venturing out at night when we could live freely in both? So I went to New Haven, but they were not living at Yale either. I went to all of the Ivy League schools, to Providence and Cambridge, to Hanover and Ithaca, and finally to New Jersey, to Princeton, visiting as many medical facilities as I could, hoping to find the scent of a vampire, but I found none. I saved my old home for last.

I moved down the Delaware from Trenton, through Burlington and into Camden. And stared at my old city, across the river. The signs of modernization were there. The shipyards to the south were massive, and I saw the newer buildings. But there were no skyscrapers as in New York. The new city hall, with its statue of William Penn at the top, soared over Philadelphia, towering above all the other buildings. I rather liked this. It made me feel more at home, my city not being so greatly different from what it once had been. It sprawled outward, far larger than before, and Camden was far more developed as well, but it still felt familiar. Massive bridges now spanned the Delaware, one right into the heart of the city. I decided I wanted to cross the bridge rather than leap the river.

Once again, the presence of motor cars was distracting. The city streets had changed to accommodate them, and though the cobblestone was still there in places, the streets had been widened so that they were unfamiliar. The beginnings of a massive road along the Delaware were in motion. Why would they want to hide the city from the river with a huge road?

I moved south and then west, and I was on Market Street, far wider than before and paved differently. Susan's family home was gone, and shops lined the street, which now ended at the new city hall. The old state house, now Independence Hall, was a historic site, and tourists moved through it. I could not believe I'd stood on those steps when independence was still just a dangerous idea, one that might get me killed. One that did get me killed.

I crossed the Schuylkill, and then moved south again, hoping very much that I might find this vampire here. The University had grown since I'd last been there, stretching many city blocks, its own district now. I approached the university hospital, and the children's hospital, but I could not find the scent of any vampires.

I went west.

XXX

Chicago, like New York, was very different, although it was more of a work in progress, many of its new skyscrapers still unfinished. It was a grimmer citythan I remembered, the southern portion in particular filled with poverty. And it was segregated, the negros of the city living in the slums to the south while the wealthy lived in the north, in places called Wrigleyville. The skyscrapers towered over the Loop and the Magnificent Mile. I longed to see a baseball game. I'd been told it was the American pastime. I had been too preoccupied before I'd left for the Great War, or World War I, to try to appreciate the game, but American GI's insisted that it was the most spectacular of sporting events, that it was America's sporting obsession. The Cubs only played in daylight at Wrigley Field, but I could watch the White Sox at Comiskey Park on the Southside. At first, the action was slow, but then I began to appreciate the nuances of the game, how the managers decided when to swing away, when to take a pitch, when to replace a batter, when a pitcher was no longer effective. It was fascinating.

But the vampires were not here either. And I went west again, as far west as I could, to a place where rain was constant, where almost no humans lived. The last place on Siobhan's list. A house stood alone in the woods on this grey peninsula, stood a few miles east of the beach. But it had not been inhabited in many years. I was tempted to feed on the Indians by the beach, to experience the kill of the savages, but Siobhan had told me that these vampires had a delicate balance with the peoples that lived near them. So I did not go to the small logging town nearby, either, but traveled south along the Pacific coast. I had sought them for over a year, and found nothing.

I went to San Francisco. It was not the same as further north, where the rain was almost constant, but it was often misty and grey, and I could move freely until the sun finally burned the mist from the bay. It was a lovely city, the bridge that crossed the mouth of the bay, the Golden Gate, one of the most amazing bits of architecture I'd ever seen. I entered the city, which sat on a peninsula enclosing the bay, a natural harbor that only New York could match, perhaps even better. I was hungry, and I sought out prey as soon as night fell

And, to my astonishment, I finally encountered the very vampires I'd given up on. As I approached my kill, a groundskeeper in Golden Gate Park, I caught the scent of another vampire. I stopped short. I would not be hostile. That was my old life, my old way. I was not out to kill other vampires anymore. I simply waited, and let him approach.

He did so slowly and quietly, exiting a stand of trees, his stance open, as mine was. His hair was multiple colors, brown and red and gold intermixed. He was not as tall as I, perhaps six feet and an inch. But his build was similar, a thin frame that belied muscles. He was twenty feet away when he stopped, and simply stared at me. My mind went through all of the ways I could attack if I needed to, and his expression became more serious. Why? I tried to be pleasant.

"Hello. I am Garrett. Have I crossed into your territory?" I tried to be pleasant.

"I'm afraid that you have, Garrett. My name is Edward." The name was one that Siobhan had said. Was he Edward Cullen?

"Yes," he said. I did not think I had spoken aloud. "Siobhan told you where to find us?"

"How…?" I knew I had not spoken of Siobhan.

"She did not tell you of my…gift?" I shook my head, confused.

And then there were others. A large, hulking vampire, dark hair, well muscled, a smirk on his face. An expecting smirk. He was enormous, as tall as me but the size of a house. His companion was lithe and blonde, his hair longer than the other two. I knew him, though we had never met.

"I do not see that, Jasper," Edward said quietly, as the two vampires flanked either side of Edward. I did not know what he responded to. The blonde moved into a hunting crouch. I remembered him, how his presence had made people calm despite themselves. And I remembered his name, Jasper. From the wars in the south. From Monterrey. A vicious killer. I crouched as well, ready to spring. Ready to die. He could not calm me, the same way William could not persuade me. I clutched my independence around myself. I was my own man.

The big one looked at Jasper and Edward, and then he crouched as well, his smile widening. Edward did not move.

"Hello, Garrett." Jasper whispered. "So nice to finally be face to face with the vampire who slays vampires." And he snarled.


	28. 25 RETRIBUTION 1828

Author's Note: If you read the version of the last chapter that involved Garrett and the Child of the Moon, then I'm sorry

_Author's Note: If you read the version of the last chapter that involved Garrett and the Child of the Moon, then I'm sorry. You should go back and read the last chapter again, because I decided to turn that tale into its own story, a spinoff of this story called Midnight Moon. And yes, there are distinct similarities, particularly at the outset, to Stephenie Meyer's unpublished __Midnight Sun__ (although the inspiration for expanding the Children of the Moon arc came from the __Supernatural__ episode "Heart" from season two, and if I can convince even one reader to start watching that absolutely fantastic show, then I've done my job. I promise I took almost no inspiration from the craptastic __Underworld__ movies, though there are similarities). There was no way that I could properly tell the Child of the Moon storyline and keep with the chapter time jumps, which are absolutely necessary to tell this story. The Child of the Moon arc was just way too big in my head for only a couple of chapters. The new chapter 24 is COMPLETELY different, I promise, and needs to be read if you like this story, so go back to the chapter "Villain" if you're chapter 24 was "Innocence", which is now the first chapter of the new story. If you're enjoying Forever Night but don't want to read the other story, you can probably guess how Midnight Moon ends (particularly if you've seen that __Supernatural__ episode). Sorry for the confusion, and I hope I don't turn anyone off. I promise I didn't do it on purpose. Also, special shout out to the __Angel__ season five episode "The Girl in Question" at the end of this chapter. _

**25. RETRIBUTION (1828)**

How strange to be climbing the same tree, under such different circumstances. I leapt to the limb quickly, and looked inside. The room was completely dark, no one was inside. The scent had led to the front door. I wondered if he knew I was coming, smelled my scent, heard the branch creak when it encountered my weight.

I pushed the sill of the window up, and heard the crack as I broke the lock. He'd heard that.

I wrenched the sash open and entered the room. Only one bed was in it now. It was painted differently as well. I did not bother to hide my presence, and strode quickly through the room, listening outside the door. I opened it. No one waited outside.

"Garrett?" a voice called from downstairs. Susan's voice. My body wanted to rush down, but I had to be patient. I said nothing. I walked quietly down the dark hallway, to the top of the stairs. There was a light below.

"Garrett? Is that you?" Susan called. Her voice was so concerned. But if I died, it would be worse. So I waited, trying to hear anything else, something other than Susan, her occasional breaths and movements.

"William? Mary? Are you here?" Her voice was frantic now. She knew someone else was in the building. I took the first step downward, expecting Steven to appear out of nowhere.

The step creaked at my weight. But no attack came.

"Please, is someone there? It hurts…" She was in pain. I rushed downward, vaulting over the staircase as soon as I could.

Steven hit me full force as I crossed the banister, and we hit the wall behind the staircase before I ever touched the ground. I felt the plaster crack behind me as I sank into it, and heard his teeth gnashing at my body. I'd managed to keep my arms between us, and I pushed him as hard as I could away from me, before his teeth could connect. He hit the wall in the foyer below me, and was immediately in his hunting crouch, but he moved away from me, towards the light.

I expected another attack as I approached, but instead I found him crouched over Susan. They were in front of a roaring fireplace, the fire so high that the smoke was not all rising through the flue, some of it remaining in the room. I heard his teeth, ripping into her legs. I leapt at him immediately.

Exactly what he wanted.

He gripped me in midair, slamming me against the stone of the fireplace, his teeth once again trying to find any flesh that they could. I pushed myself, bracing my legs against the brick, towards, Susan, but he had braced his body for this attempt, and my only escape was to push away from her. I screamed when he did not release my arm as I leapt, and it twisted violently in the wrong direction.

He crouched in front of her, and she screamed as well. His most recent bite was not the first he'd inflicted on her. She had healed and half-healed bites on both arms and both legs. I roared as loudly as I could. The police would be upon the house in a moment. That was a good thing. I needed Susan out more than I needed Steven dead.

"So good to see you again, Garrett," Steven snarled, keeping himself between me and Susan. His polite tone as he'd tortured me, always formal until I'd provoked him, was nowhere in his voice on this night.

"We won't be seeing each other again, Steven, so say whatever you want now. This fight won't happen again."

"Quite right," he said, his voice only a half snarl. "It's only been a decade in the making, Garrett. Any last words before we finish this? I have a few of my own."

"I'd never killed a vampire before your dandy mate, and he barely put up a fight. Wonder how you'll hold up?" I taunted.

"She will die right after you do," he snarled, and then we attacked each other. He was better than I was, even if my arm were not twisted. I tried to black out as I'd done with his mate, to turn it into a hunt, but Susan's presence, the danger to her, wouldn't allow it. I was both stronger and faster, but he was far more skilled, and he had nothing to preoccupy him. All he wanted was to kill me. I was his hunt.

He tore off the front of my jacket, his teeth trying to dig at my chest, and I was on the defensive, just trying to keep him at bay. I could only imagine that his ferocity towards me was the same as my own ferocity towards Francis. He was an unstoppable, thoughtless killer. I was the one with greater concerns.

And then my greater concern intervened.

Susan leapt onto his back, her teeth digging into the flesh of his neck, and blood spurted from the wound. He pushed away from me, grabbing her arms, and threw her, as hard as he could. Her body went straight to the fire.

"No!" I screamed, and tossed myself in front of her. She bounced off of my chest, hard, but away from the fire.

My own body was not so lucky.

My head hit the mantle of the fireplace and pitched forward, but it didn't stop my momentum, and my body plunged directly into the flame. My jacket lit immediately, my britches as well, and I screamed in torment.

Steven stared, for just a moment, and then moved cautiously toward me. Susan hit his body from the side. But she was too weak, not as strong as him even before her injuries. He tossed her away, and I heard another wall crumble.

I reached toward her, but the flames were too painful. I doubled over on the ground. My hands and my head were not burning, and I clutched my hands to my face as I rolled on the ground, roaring once again.

"You should not have been the one to kill him," Steven said, standing over me, a smirk on his face. "Get used to burning. You'll do a lot of that in hell."

He crouched in front of me, and clutched my wrists with his hands, stopping me from rolling, allowing the flames to catch once again. He moved his head toward my wrist, his teeth bared.

I did the only thing I could think of. I let the hunter's blindness take me. Susan was gone, the pain was gone, everything was gone. I grabbed his face with the hand he clutched, and pulled it directly into the flames on my back, over top of me. I rolled my body over his, until he was in flames as well.

I heard him screaming, heard both of our screams. But he was already dousing the flames. My distraction was only momentary.

He was above me again. "You're a better adversary than I gave you credit for, Garrett. I never overestimated you, but perhaps I underestimated you. But enough with dalliances. Time to die."

I concentrated very hard on stopping my screams, but I could not stop trying to put out the flames, which touched everything but my head now.

Steven looked down on me, triumphantly. Smoke rose from his jacket, the fire extinguished. His wound was already healing, blood no longer present. I continued to writhe, trying as hard as I could to put out the fire, to keep it away from my head.

And then I looked beyond him, and I could not help but return a familiar smirk, despite the pain.

Steven's look went from triumphant to quizzical, and then William ripped his arm from his body. His scream was louder than any of mine had been. Despite his pain, Steven managed to turn and dig his teeth hard into William's chest, gripping tightly. William tossed Steven from him, smashing him into a wall.

I didn't think, didn't speak. I reached into the flames of the fire, grabbing as much kindling as I could, and, ignoring my burning hands, my burning body, thrust it straight into Steven's chest, and then I bit down on his other shoulder, ripping his other arm free. I was still the killer, and the pain was nothing compared to the blindness of the hunt, the berserker rage that filled me to my core. I dug into his throat, continuing where Susan had left off, and the flames from the kindling on his chest burned my shoulder

And then I realized that the flames were not just the fireplace, or Steven, or even me. The whole house was burning down. I broke from my hunting blackout, and the pain hit me like a battering ram.

"I've got you!" William shouted, and he had me in his arms, though I was far larger, and we were out the door and into the night, eyes turning towards the flames that even our speed could not mask. William didn't stop until we were in the Delaware, completely submerged.

He walked me all the way to the Jersey side of the river. Was he on fire too? I had to admit that being submerged soothed my body.

"Susie…" I mumbled as we reached the other side.

"I'm here love," she murmured, and I felt her hand grip mine. She made no comment about the pet name she hated.

"How…did…you?" I couldn't finish.

"Mary pulled me out while William helped you," she whispered in my ear.

"Are you…?"

"I'm fine. A few scars. I'm more concerned about you." She kissed my forehead.

"As long…as you're safe." Susie cradled me to her, and I opened my eyes. William and Mary stood on either side of us, and we watched Susan's old home burn, across the river.

"Did we get him?" I asked William.

"The kindling was a brilliant move, though I don't know how you bared it. I got his legs when you took care of his other arm and neck.

I sighed in relief.

"You were right, by the way," William continued. "That was quite exhilarating, killing another vampire. Next time, don't make Mary and I wait ten minutes before we follow you."

Ten minutes? That was all they'd waited? I'd have been dead if they'd waited twelve. I tried to smile. And then I grimaced and groaned.

"What is it? Are you alright?" Susie was full of concern now. But I simply looked down at myself.

"Do you know what it took to get that jacket? Worn it for nearly fifty years! It's irreplaceable! It was a part of me! Like a second skin!" William and Mary were laughing, and Susie was rolling her eyes.

It wasn't funny. That jacket _was _irreplaceable.

XXX

"Good as new," Mary sighed, as Susie pulled a well worn Continental jacket over my shoulders. I tried to complain, but really, it was in better shape than the old jacket. Though it didn't have the sentimental value.

"What do we do now?" I asked, just thankful to have my jacket back, or at least one like mine. Apparently there were quite a few of them lying around, according to Mary.

"I quite enjoyed killing that vampire," William said quietly. Mary and Susie looked at us with dismay.

"What do you think, Susie? Up for it?" I grinned at her widely.

"As long as you stop calling me Susie," she replied, grimacing. I wouldn't make that promise. I rather liked calling her Susie

"Haven't we learned a lesson here?" Mary asked.

"Quite right," I responded. "Make sure we kill the mates. And don't assume you know who it will be." I laughed out loud and pulled Susie into my arms, and kissed her forcefully, while Mary and William looked on.


	29. INTERLUDE 3

INTERLUDE 3

**INTERLUDE 3**

My body convulsed with pain.

Katie was at full strength, stronger even than when I'd asked her to show me her ability. Her electric nature coursed through every part of my being.

But I did not let go. I couldn't. Katie would die if I wasn't strong enough. And I wouldn't let her die. I had to die first. I wasn't going to live in a world without her.

I'd loved too many. I'd lost too many. Katie wouldn't die. Not if I could help it. She would never love me. How could she? I was hopelessly in love with her. But I could never be worthy of her love. She would never feel the same way about me. But at least I could stop her from killing herself.

She would find her happiness. I wouldn't let another person I loved die in front of me.

The waves of electricity passed through me, but I wouldn't let go. Katie deserved better than that son of a bitch Caius killing her. I hoped this was my last act, that I might give her the opportunity to find happiness in the future.

Even if that future was not with me.

I realized that I was screaming.

And then the pain disappeared.


	30. 26 PEACEFUL 1955

26

**26. PEACEFUL (1955)**

"You want a go then, Jasper? Still thinking about all those times you missed me down south? Have at it. I've been waiting for this as long as you have." I matched the smirk that the big vampire had worn before. And let out a low growl.

"Please, stop this," Edward insisted. "There's no reason to fight here."

"Edward, you have no idea what he has done. What he is. As soon as Alice described him to me, I knew we had to catch up and intervene. This man will kill you simply for being another vampire." Jasper's face was hard. I tried to hold my smirk

"If I am the vampire slayer, then you are the vampire mass murderer," I replied. "I never created those armies. That's on your conscience." Not quite true, but close enough."

"Would someone like to tell me what's going on?" the big vampire interceded. "Not that I mind killing him. But Alice told Jasper that the vampire she saw was tall, with long sandy hair, and kind of scruffy. Kind of sounded as though he was describing Jasper, except for the scruffy part. And then Jasper suddenly decided that not only should you not meet him, Edward, but that we needed to kill him."

"Jasper and I are very old friends." I continued to smirk.

"Though we've never met," Jasper hissed.

"Nice to finally be face to face. You usually attack from behind. Though the reinforcements are familiar. Never did like a fair fight, did you Jasper?" He hissed again.

"Garrett encountered some of the vampires that Jasper and Maria created, Emmett," Edward whispered quietly. "Their meetings were not pleasant. Garrett killed most of them. It was his mission."

"Hmm," the big vampire smiled, and then moved out of his crouch. "That sounds like my kind of vampire," Emmett said.

"Yes," Edward replied. "He is very much your kind of vampire, Emmett."

But Jasper and I ignored them. Perhaps they did not want to dance, but Jasper and I were ready. Jasper tried to use his gift, his way of calming those around him. I shrugged off his attempt immediately. I'd been around William for too many years. No one could affect the way I thought. I remembered Mary's suggestion, so long ago. And wrapped my independence around me, clutched it to the deepest part of my mind.

Edward's eyes looked at mine, and then he stared at Jasper, seemingly annoyed.

"Jasper, please. He did not come here to fight us."

"I don't care why he came. I won't let the vampire killer within a continent of Alice." Jasper took a step forward.

"Garrett, then. I know why you are here. You don't want to do this," Edward begged. But I wanted to do this very much. It wasn't why I'd come, but it was reason enough. If the Volturi wouldn't kill me, perhaps Jasper and his companions would. It really wouldn't be a surprise if my life ended by Jasper's hand. Only the location was wrong. This should have happened in Mexico a half century ago. Before I'd had time to inflict even more damage. But it was good enough.

I thought quickly about my options. Jasper was one of the most dangerous of our kind alive. More dangerous than anything I'd encountered besides the Volturi, the Children of the Moon, and myself. If I could just take him out before the others intervened, then my death would be worthwhile. A good death. I only hoped that I could dismember him fully before the others could stop me. And that the fire wasn't necessary, that dismemberment would be enough.

I flexed my muscles in preparation, ready to pounce. But I wouldn't be the first to strike. That would have to be Jasper. I was no longer that man.

"Thank you so much for coming," Edward said quietly, and I smelled another vampire, approaching from my left. "Jasper is being unreasonable. Garrett as well."

The new vampire approached me cautiously but confidently. He stopped only ten feet away, and I was able to examine him. There was something wrong with his eyes. Where their color should have been crimson, it was instead liquid gold. I looked at the eyes of the other three, and their color matched. Even Jasper's. The new vampire was blonde and handsome. I thought he was younger than me in his old life, before he'd been turned, and yet something about his face and the way he carried himself suggested that he was older and wiser than I was.

He extended his hand to me. "Hello. My name is Carlisle Cullen. I see you've met my sons, Jasper, and Edward, and Emmett." I sneered. Jasper was no one's son. I was surprised when Jasper looked nearly as uncomfortable with his inclusion as I did.

But there was something so open in the vampire. So honest. The way he greeted me reminded me of how Danny had greeted me. I remembered Danny's wide grin, his welcoming eyes, his lonely demeanor. This vampire, Carlisle, did not seem lonely, but he was just as open.

Everyone waited for me to react.

I wanted to die. But I wanted to be a better man as well. The divergent compulsions fought inside me. But Sabine would not want me to die for no reason besides an old quarrel. I rose from my crouch, and the blonde vampire and I approached each other slowly. I reached out and shook his hand.

"Garrett Wilcox Smith, sir" I said quietly. I didn't know what else to do.

"I'm so very glad to meet you, Garrett. I know that you have a bit of history with Jasper, but he is trying to overcome it. I hope very much that you are trying, too." His statement could have been a threat, but there was nothing in his voice, or his face, that indicated anything more than honesty.

"He is," Edward said, coming towards us. "He is very much like you, Jasper. But he doesn't have Alice to help him."

A new look crossed Jasper's face as he too rose from his crouch and approached us. I couldn't place it. Was it sympathy? Guilt? Pity? His body was still tense, but he no longer seemed angry.

"Would you mind telling me how he knows so much about me?" I asked Carlisle, my head inclining toward Edward.

"Some vampires have powers…" Carlisle started.

"I know. Jasper has been trying to use his on me for the last five minutes."

Carlisle's look was startled.

"His power doesn't work on you?" He looked very curious.

"Never has. Though he's tried. This isn't the first time." I gave Jasper a smirk. Just because I was being friendly didn't mean I had to like the bastard.

"Interesting. Tell me, how many vampire's have you met with powers? Were any of them able to affect you?"

Edward cut him off. "I can read minds, Garrett. And I'm reading yours." He said to me. "We can get to those questions later, Carlisle."

"Yes, quite right," Carlisle responded, and walked away. I assumed I should follow.

"If you would like to meet the rest of the family, and perhaps enjoy a shower, then yes," Edward replied to my unspoken thought, and then walked past me, after Carlisle. Emmett and Jasper waited for me to follow. I did, and I could hear them behind me.

"I thought this vampire was supposed to be dangerous. You got my hopes up for nothing," Emmett whispered.

"Besides me, he's the most dangerous vampire you've ever encountered. Keep an eye out for Rosalie. I won't let him within ten feet of Alice," Jasper responded.

But he was wrong. I was more dangerous than him.

XXX

"Hello?" I yelled, but not too loudly. I was trying to be polite. "Is anyone there?"

I was completely naked but for the towel wrapped around my waist. Steam from the shower wafted out of the bathroom around me. I was quite sure that I'd left my clothes draped across the chair outside the door to the bathroom, but I couldn't even smell them. The place where I'd left them smelled like flowers instead.

"Do you need a hair dryer?" Alice asked as she danced into the room, her arms full of clothing. She placed each item on the bed individually, and then looked at me expectantly. I pulled my arms over my chest, embarrassed. Didn't she have a mate? A mate that wanted to kill me?

"I'm sorry, what?" I finally stuttered.

"Your hair is still all wet. I have a hair dryer if you need it." She smiled at me brightly.

My hair was still wet, hanging in tendrils on my shoulders. But that wasn't what I was worried about.

"Alice, where are my clothes?"

"Those dreadful things? I burned them. They smelled awful. I think you can fit in Emmett's clothing. He doesn't wear these anymore. Says they bring down his mood. But I think they're perfect for you." She smiled happily as she indicated the clothing on the bed.

"Thanks," I murmured, and approached the bed. She waited expectantly.

"Umm, a moment please?" I asked, when she didn't move.

"Fine," she harrumphed, and she seemed disappointed. But she danced out of the room, to my great relief. I shut and locked the door behind her. Was she expecting me to dress in front of her? Did she want Jasper and I to kill each other?

We'd travelled south down the peninsula from the city, to Palo Alto. I was shocked when Carlisle told me that they kept a home there, and even more surprised when I saw it. It wasn't a home, it was a mansion, with a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay. Apparently all of his "children" attended Stanford, although they only took night classes, and he was a doctor at the university hospital.

Carlisle motioned me inside when he opened the door, and a small woman with brown hair greeted me in the foyer.

"Welcome to our home. My name is Esme." She was just as polite as Carlisle. He moved to her side, and kissed her cheek, and I was briefly reminded of Snow White and Prince Charming.

"Garrett Wilcox Smith, ma'am" I said quietly, and ducked my head. "Thank you so much for having me, in your home."

Jasper moved past me into the common area, and Emmett followed. Edward remained at my side.

"Won't you come in?" Esme asked, and gestured towards the living room. The lights across the bay sparkled in the night, the entire wall of the living room made up of glass that would catch every ray of the sunrise, across the bay, across the whole country. Jasper clutched a small girl, five feet at best, tightly to him near the windows. Emmett hugged his own companion, a tall blonde, to his chest. She turned towards me, and if I'd had any breath, I would have lost it. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She was the embodiment of perfection. I was not attracted to her as I was to Susan or Sabine. Part of their indescribable magnetism was their slight imperfections. This girl was perfect in every way. Too perfect. So perfect that I wanted to look away from her. No one should look the way she did. It was unnatural. Strangely off-putting.

"These are my daughters, Rosalie and Alice," Esme continued, indicating the gorgeous blonde first, and then the tiny brunette in Jasper's arms.

Jealousy suddenly raged through me. All these years, all this torment, and a monster like Jasper had found someone? Everything I'd gone through with Susan, and with Sabine, and Jasper was happy and content and had a girl on his arm? What sin had I committed that was so much worse than all of the things that Jasper had done? How could he deserve this when all that I had was misery? I was suddenly enraged.

Edward's hand clutched my shoulder tightly. "He deserves happiness. Perhaps you do as well," he whispered in my ear, but I knew that all of them could hear, that they all saw how tense my body was. Emmett had pulled Rosalie behind him, and even Carlisle's body seemed taut at my expression.

"He will find it," a voice chimed, and everyone, including me, was shaken from the intense moment. Jasper had pulled the tiny girl, with her short and spiky hair, behind him, but she looked past him, looked past all of us, her stare vacant, as if she was seeing something that none of the rest of us were.

She stared like that for a long while, and then shook her head and smiled at me. No one in the room had breathed. She moved towards me, and Jasper pulled her back.

"Oh, please," she sighed, and moved away from him. He followed her closely as she approached me, his hands on her waist, until she stood directly in front of me. She peered up at my face.

"I am so glad that you're here, Garrett Smith. I couldn't see it before. I thought you might get killed trying to kill Jasper." She looked at Jasper derisively, and then at me, with the same expression of derision. And then she was smiling again. "Someday, you will help us. I don't know how. But someday, we will need you to be our friend. And you will be a better friend than even I could imagine." And then she shocked me. She reached up, her hand clasping my neck. She pulled me down to her, and her lips softly brushed my cheek.

She released me, and her face contorted to a grimace. Jasper was looking at her in shock. I supposed he hoped she was coming to her senses. But then she smiled at me again.

"You stink," she said. "Use one of our showers. And please, let me clean those clothes."

Edward laughed quietly beside me. "She always gets her way. She knows the future. May as well do what she says." Being around a vampire who read minds and a vampire who saw the future was extremely annoying. Though I rather liked the idea that I might find happiness. I didn't _believe_ it, but it was always nice to dream.

The shower had been wonderful, better than I'd imagined. I never thought of hygiene, but the warm water, the soap, the shampoo in my hair, made realize that there were some luxuries that were worthwhile.

I looked down at the clothing Alice had left me. I pulled the briefs on quickly, though they were too loose, and then the black denim jeans. They nearly fell off of me. I buttoned the red shirt, and pulled the black leather jacket over my shoulders. Everything was too loose. I desperately needed a belt.

Alice knocked quietly, and then entered, though I'd said nothing, and I hadn't unlocked the door. She handed me a belt, and I pulled it quickly through the notches at my waist.

"Much better," she commented as I pulled on the socks and laced the black boots up. "It suits you more than Emmett." She nodded once, satisfied, and left the room. I followed her downstairs, pulling my still-wet hair into a tail.

XXX

I was happy for only a few days. But I could not overcome my self loathing. It was almost a relief when Jasper approached me on my third day in the Cullen house.

"I think we need to talk," he said quietly.

He was right. All of this happiness was making me miserable.

_Author's Note: I'm not trying to be the vindictive bastard author that some people are on this site (I've never demanded reviews) but if you want to know who Sabine is and how Garrett met the Volturi, you'll just have to read Midnight Moon. In fact, you'll have to keep reading it. Sorry._


	31. 27 VIGNETTES 1828 TO 1862

Author's Note #1: So I said I wouldn't repeat what I did in Chapter 23, "Decisions"

_Author's Note #1: So I said I wouldn't repeat what I did in Chapter 23, "Decisions". I lied. I very much wanted to write a dream chapter, but for obvious reasons I couldn't. So I wrote this chapter instead. It's absolutely nonsensical. I don't care. It was the closest I could get to writing a dream chapter of this story. If you wanted to read a straightforward story, this really wasn't the place to begin with. I can't even begin to describe how much fun this chapter was to write. As before, it owes a ton to the __Lost__ episode "The Constant" and __Lost__ in general, but I wanted to write it because of the __Buffy the Vampire Slayer__ episode "Restless", the __Angel__ episode "Time Bomb" (if you haven't noticed already, this story is heavily influenced by __Angel__ season five), and, of course, __American Psycho__. Bear with me, Cullens are involved in the next chapter, and this one sows the seeds of destruction for the nineteenth century plotline._

**27. VIGNETTES (1828-1861)**

INSANITY (1862)

I was going mad. There was no other explanation…

HURRY (1847)

_I'm coming home, Susie. I'm sorry_.

I never should have left her. The whole war had been a horrible mistake. If I'd thought the last war was reprehensible, this one was worse. It was a war for the sake of territory. Not that I had any particular affection for the Mexicans. But still, this idea of Manifest Destiny was ridiculous.

Mexico was too hot and too bright. So was Texas. I couldn't move freely. I had to hide from the daylight every single day. Most of all, I missed Susie. Desperately.

Susie and I had a date. I'd promised I would meet her on her birthday. At least, her vampire birthday. She didn't seem to remember her human birthday, though I did. I would be in Cooper Square in New York by September 20. I'd left a siege for it.

Three days to get to New York City. Not a problem

I ran faster, just in case.

BAD SIGN (1839)

"I'm leaving," Mary said quietly, but we all looked up.

William had provided us with a luxurious home in the Fourth Ward. He'd just returned from a kill, a few hours after Susie. I was rereading _Othello_ for what seemed the fiftieth time. But fifty was perhaps an understatement. I'd have to find a new author eventually. Though I really didn't want to.

We all stared at Mary. Her face looked disgusted as she eyed each of us, me on the couch, a book in my hand, Susie by the fire, pretending to warm herself, but mostly contemplating the flames, and William, slouched relaxedly at the entrance to the den, his face contented.

"Why," Susie finally said. This would be the third time Mary left us, though the first time she'd announced it beforehand.

"I have a few things to take care of," she said quietly, and looked at William. The look was almost angry.

"Very well, Mary. Do what you want," William sighed.

FEARSOME (1855)

"I know of him," the vampire said quietly, and pointed at me in fear.

"Yes?" I asked expectantly, wondering what he'd heard.

The vampire didn't respond, but turned from us and fled, into the desert night.

"Shall we?" William looked at me, a smirk on his face.

"Why not?" I replied, returning his smirk.

Susie and Mary both rolled their eyes as William and I embarked on another chase. Hunting vampires was fun.

SEARCHERS (1830)

"There aren't nearly as many of our kind as I thought there would be," William sighed wistfully. "It's been nearly two years, and we haven't even caught a scent."

"If I had to guess, I would say that one out of every hundred thousand people that you passed on the street at night in your human life was a vampire," Mary replied. "Turning a human into one of our kind is far too difficult for most."

I listened to their conversation inside the lavish hotel room we shared overlooking the river. It was Friday night, and River Street was crawling with people, some drunker than others. Susie sat in my lap, curled up in my arms, and we stared across the river and into the darkness, listening to the hum of people below us and to William and Mary's conversation inside.

"It's rather hard to thin a population that's already threadbare," William said, annoyed.

"I never thought this was a good idea in the first place," Mary responded. "It might not be a rule, but I doubt the Volturi would take kindly to us removing the vampire population of the United States."

"Let them come. At least we would have something to fight!" William responded. And then sank his teeth into the human girl who quivered beside the bed.

Her scream was but a whisper over the crowded street below us.

I flinched and buried my face in Susie's hair.

KILLERS (1858)

I heard the scraping sound as William dug his teeth into the throat of his kill. My vampire was already dismembered, and I was gathering the pieces of my hunt while I listened to William finish of the other newborn.

"Any sign of Susie?" I asked, when Mary entered.

"Still hunting, I guess." Mary shrugged as she approached us, her face completely calm despite the gruesome sight she was witnessing.

"And no Volturi?" I asked as I lit the flames of my own prey and began gathering the parts of William's kill.

"Stop worrying, Garrett. They left before we ever got here." It was William instead of Mary who responded. He had the head of his vampire in one hand, and the torso in another. He added them to the flames.

"He is correct," Mary put in, before I could retort. "The Volturi haven't been here in nearly a decade. They are the least of our worries."

"Then what should we be worried about?" William asked, sneering.

"Reprisals," I responded for Mary, already knowing what she was thinking.

"I'm starting to get bored anyway. Perhaps we should go back north."

"I agree. There is too much sun here," I replied. Mary nodded. We waited quietly for Susie, and I watched the fire burn, turning our kill into dust.

WARNINGS (1846)

"Take care of her, please," I asked Mary quietly.

"She's capable of taking of herself, Mary replied.

I looked at her sharply, hoping Susie hadn't overheard.

"Don't leave," Mary said, her voice soft but insistent. "I make no promises for what happens when you aren't here." She looked me straight in the eye, and her face was deadly serious.

"I trust you and I trust Susan. I'm even staring to trust William." I hoped my answering smile would assuage her, but it didn't.

"Garrett-" she started, but William cut her off.

"Going into battle, then?" William asked, his face happy. "I think we'll take in this new city for awhile. There's something breathtaking about the river." He swept his hand over the view of the Mississippi.

"So when shall we meet?" William continued, ignoring a cautious look from Mary. Susie refused to look at us, despite William's nonchalance.

"New York, on Susie's birthday next year," I replied. Susie didn't look up, but stared straight at the river.

"Cooper Square, then?"

"Yes William, that will be fine." I rose to leave. "Until then," I said abruptly., and turned to leave.

"Garrett!" Susan cried, and I turned back, joy filling my heart.

DISTRACTIONS (1835)

Susie drank from my shoulder, and I drank from hers. I did not need this for our intimacy, but it was important to her, every once in awhile, so it was important to me.

I tasted the blood of her victims, and it coursed through my veins, as she tasted the blood of mine. I wrenched her body away from mine at the last possible moment, and screamed her name. Her scream was indecipherable.

Her body collapsed on top of me, her arms wrapping around my neck tightly.

"You'll never stop calling me that, will you?" Susie sighed, her voice only slightly frustrated.

"Never," I replied, a smile on my face.

The beach was completely empty. To a human, it would have looked untouched in the night sky, but I could see the occasional footprint that had not washed away with the tide or blown away with the ocean breeze. The dunes rose behind us, the soft grass rippling in the wind.

She kissed me lightly on the throat, her nipples grazing the hair on my chest as she moved towards me, her lips and teeth exploring the outside of my ear.

"Hmm," she moaned, as my own lips brushed her collar bone.

'What is it, love?" I asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the sounds of the ocean as the waves lapped quietly along the sand.

"The lower part of your ear is connected to your neck. I never noticed." She laughed merrily in my ear, and I let my lips move to her ear.

The flesh was separate, and my tongue moved between the skin of her neck and her ear.

"That tickles!" she exclaimed, and we both laughed loudly. I couldn't help but get sand in her hair when I rolled myself above her.

EVADED (1860)

"She's gone again," William declared.

We'd waited for Mary for almost a week. She rarely told us her comings and goings, but this was the first time in nearly thirty years that she hadn't informed us that she was leaving for an extended period.

"You need to lighten up, William. She'll come back. She always does."

I lay in the deep grass, and stared at the sun above me, its brightness burning my eyes. I tried very hard to lose myself in my thoughts. That was the closest I could get to sleep.

"Really Garrett, you should take this more seriously," William replied. I ignored him.

"Do you feel it?" I asked, and turned to Susie, gripping her hand tighter in my own.

"Feel what?" she replied, her face confused as she looked back at me over the matted grass beneath us.

"Everything," I sighed. She still looked confused, so I looked away, back to the vast sky above us.

"Don't bother, Susan. Garrett is crazy. Ask any vampire who has ever heard of him." He stalked off in frustration.

MADNESS (1862)

The sky actually fell around me. I clawed at my face, hoping I could rip my eyes from their sockets.

ANSWERS (1847)

"But the Volturi are there?" William looked worried.

"They've been killing vampires for months, trying to destroy this movement." I couldn't understand why he wasn't more excited.

"So they've created armies of vampires, newborns, to destroy each other. Only they get destroyed as often as not?" Susie could not comprehend my excitement.

"Yes! Hundreds of vampires to kill, as soon as the Volturi leave!" I couldn't contain my excitement.

"But it makes no sense," Mary interrupted. "Why create an army of newborn vampires? There are barely enough of us around that we even encounter each other more than a few times a century."

"Something about controlling a city, having all the humans to yourself." I didn't really care about the reasons why they did it. I just delighted in the idea of hundreds of fresh vampire hunts. The strategy didn't make much sense to me, either, but that really didn't matter. What mattered was that there were vampires to kill, and lots of them.

"I thought this would be glad tidings, along with my return." I smiled at Susie, clutched in my arms. She looked at me warily. I'd have to amend that look as soon as possible.

"Well done, Garrett," William said at last, ignoring Mary's protests. "That's about as promising a situation as I've heard in a long time.

He smiled broadly. I returned his grin.

_Author's Note #2: If you're a geography buff like I obviously am, here is a break down of where each vignette takes place: "Hurry" (1847), Puebla, Puebla Province, Mexico; "Bad Sign" (1839), Charlotte, North Carolina; "Fearsome" (1855), outside of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico; "Searchers" (1830), Savannah, Georgia; "Killers" (1858), Guatemala City, Guatemala; "Warnings" (1846), St. Louis, Missouri; "Distractions" (1835), then uninhabited but future Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina; "Evaded" (1860) Forkland, Kentucky; "Answers" (1847) Cooper Square, New York, New York; "Insanity" and "Madness" (1862), Hampton Roads, Virginia._


	32. 28 UNCOMFORTABLE 1955

28

**28. UNCOMFORTABLE (1955)**

"So Jasper doesn't affect you? Remarkable! I wonder why?"

Carlisle did not appraise me as a person. He looked at me as if I were a puzzle, something to be solved. But his face was so curious and so honest that I could not be offended. How could any vampire be as he was? He wasn't a monster at all.

"Some of the powers that we have work on me. Others do not," I replied when his interest failed to wane.

We sat in the living room of his home, I on the couch, Carlisle in a chair a few feet away. He stared at me attentively, while I stared out over the bay. That a vampire even had a home, much less one so luxuriant, was astonishing to me.

The sky was grey outside, and his "children" were taking advantage of the opportunity, mingling in the human world, taking classes or shopping or whatever it was that they did. For three days I'd stayed with the Cullens, and for three days I became increasingly less comfortable with the nature of their world. I simply did not fit. I admired that they interacted with humans, but I could not comprehend their interest in human affairs. I wasn't particularly interested in vampire affairs, much less human affairs. I wasn't interested in anything at all, at that point. Besides dying.

"You've met others of our kind with powers, then?" Carlisle asked excitedly. I heard his mate, his wife, moving below us, rearranging furniture while the children were away.

"My…brother had a certain power of persuasion. He convinced others to pursue his goals. But he never could persuade me. And I've met the Volturi."

"Was Aro able to read your mind? Did you meet Jane and Alec?" he was excited now.

"Some of them affected me, some did not." I left it at that, and looked away.

"I'm sorry, I'm being rude, aren't I?" His look was apologetic. "You speak of your brother as if he died. I'm sorry."

"I don't think he will ever die, not as long as I live. If that's what I'm doing," I said softly. Carlisle frowned.

"I find that the only powers that don't work on me are the ones that try to change my personality," I explained, before Carlisle could ask any questions. "Mind reading, seeing the future, these aren't problematic for other vampires. It's only when someone tries to change who I am that the powers don't work."

"You must have very powerful sense of self," Carlisle replied.

"I used to." I didn't know what else to say.

Carlisle sensed my desire to change the subject. "How is my old country? And Europe? It has been far too long since I returned. I do hope the war has not destroyed everything."

I did not know how to reply, how to tell him that everything he knew was probably gone, a shell of its old self. I was deeply thankful when Jasper entered the house and asked to speak to me, alone.

Jasper looked at Carlisle, who nodded, and then Jasper turned and left without looking back, assuming I would follow. I was intrigued. If there was any one of these vampires I could understand, it was Jasper. I couldn't imagine what he might want to say to me alone. Or perhaps he wanted something else. I was more than willing to find out who would win in that fight.

He walked north on El Camino Real, past the university, until we were in Menlo Park, and then turned towards the bay without saying a word. We passed underneath the highway, and entered the park overlooking the bay. He finally stopped when he found a spot unhindered by passerby that overlooked the water and Fremont. I waited patiently, my curiosity for the purpose of the journey burning within me.

"You aren't happy," he finally said.

"Is it that obvious?"

Was it that obvious?

"Yes." I may not be able to change your mood, but I can still feel it. And the others have guessed as well. Not just Edward." I grimaced. Being around Edward was so infuriating that I couldn't stop myself. The last thing I wanted was someone reading and responding to my thoughts. Even with the best intentions.

Jasper did not look at me. He stared out over the bay for a time, and then glanced back towards his home, before returning his gaze to the bay. "I did not think it was possible either. But it is. And I am. Happy, that is." He sighed, and looked at me.

"You don't think I deserve it." He smiled, stopping me from responding. "You're right, I don't deserve it anymore than you. Probably less than you. But perhaps there is fate in this world after all. Alice sees the future, and she saw me. And that has made all the difference." He was still looking at me, still smiling, I jerked my head away, gazing at the bay as he had.

"We both should have died fifty years ago. You don't deserve your happiness, and I shouldn't still exist. We live on borrowed time, and I just want to give that time back." I refused to look at him.

"I feel the same, sometimes. And then Alice is there, and my world is complete. Without her I was incomplete. She makes me whole. Perhaps you will find the same."

I roared and turned on him, ready to strike. "That part of me no longer exists!" I snarled. "It can never exist. Love will never be a part of me again!"

Sabine made me think that it could. But I had been wrong. Horribly wrong.

"Peace, Garrett. I have no wish to fight you. Edward has given me a glimpse of your thoughts, of what you have been through since last we encountered each other. I do not wish to offend. I'm trying to help." His face looked sincere, and my anger abated. Somewhat.

"You can't stand being around us," he continued. "Our happiness makes your misery worse. Your misery reaks, Garrett. Alice can't understand my dark moods over the last few days. You are making me miserable." He was smiling as he spoke, hoping not to anger me again.

"I can't stand being around your…family. I hoped that Carlisle could help me, after what Siobhan told me of him, but your happiness makes me feel worse. It accentuates the evil inside of me."

I was surprised when Jasper reached out and gripped my shoulder. "None of us that were killers before deserve what this family offers. I can barely contain myself on most occasions. But I love Alice, and for some reason she loves me as well. So I live with the guilt. I fight the urge. You don't have that. I would never, could never, live this life without her."

His grip tightened. "Do whatever it is that you need to Garrett, but know this: you have a future. I have learned to never bet against Alice. And she has seen it."

Ha! A future! More destruction. More death. More misery. Best to return to Europe and have the Volturi kill me.

"Oh, Garrett?" Jasper asked, releasing my shoulder and turning from me. "For the love of God, get over yourself. It's depressing."

He left me standing in the park.

XXX

"Dammit!" Emmett shouted, trying to shake my choke hold on his neck.

I released him and stepped away until I stood next to Jasper. Jasper's grin was so wide I almost thought he was moving in for a kill. But Emmett was just that funny.

"Again! Now!" Emmett demanded, his voice and his posture menacing. But Jasper's mirth was such that I couldn't take Emmett seriously, and I grinned too.

"If you really want to. But I might actually try this time." I smirked at him, and his face twisted in rage. In truth, if even one of Emmett's strikes had caught me, I would have lost. But he didn't need to know that.

"Really Emmett, stop embarrassing yourself," Alice called, and flitted up to him. "Do you want me to beat you up, too, so that you'll be completely chagrined?" She stood directly in front of her brother, his enormous six feet and five inches looming over her tiny four feet and eleven inch frame. But she planted her hands on her hips and smiled at him, and his anger broke immediately.

"We're going to do this again. Tonight," he demanded, looking at me sternly.

"I'm afraid that won't happen," Edward spoke for me, stepping into their spacious yard from the house.

"I knew it was a fluke. Afraid of me then, huh Garrett?" Emmett grinned at me invitingly. I wanted very much to prove him wrong. Again.

"I'm afraid Garrett is leaving us," Edward said before I could. How could anyone stand to be around him for a prolonged period of time? It boggled my mind.

"They love me, so they live with it," Edward responded to my unspoken question It didn't help with my annoyance.

"So soon?" Esme asked, coming into the yard with Carlisle. She seemed genuinely saddened. I couldn't imagine why.

"I'm not meant for your life," I said quietly, before Edward could speak for me again. "Thank you, all of you, for letting me into your home, but this life is not for me. I'm still a monster." I almost felt guilty, saying the words.

"You are welcome anytime you wish to come back," Esme replied, and moved in front of me. She tugged my jacket. I didn't know what she meant, so I bent in front of her. She cupped my face in her hands, and kissed my cheek. "Please come back when you are ready," she said, and moved away from me

"Of course," Carlisle put in, and extended his hand, as he had when we first met. I shook it gratefully. "You are welcome any time Garrett."

"I cannot thank you enough for being so trustworthy. I don't deserve it." I bowed my head toward them. They actually seemed sad to see me go. I couldn't imagine why.

"Rematch. I don't care if it's five years or fifty." Emmett shook my hand and slapped me hard on the shoulder. My whole body shook.

"Absolutely. Not that anything will change. Practice with Jasper. He's almost as good as me. Then it might at least be worth my time." I laughed aloud when Emmett began to bluster.

"We'll see you out," Jasper said as he approached my side, and Alice joined him.

"Garrett," Edward said, and moved in front of me. He shook my hand as well, and then, to my shock, pulled me close so that he could whisper in my ear.

"Not everything is your fault," he said, so softly that even his family could not hear. He released me, and gave me a crooked smile.

"It was nice to meet you, Garrett," Rosalie said simply as Jasper and Alice walked with me through the living room and toward the door. She was crouched in front of the television, twisting the dial from one of the four channels to the other, as if the content might suddenly change on the next pass.

Jasper stopped me before I could leave. "I have some friends, in the south, usually near Texas. Peter and Charlotte. You may be more comfortable with them than you are with us. They hunt humans, but they live in peace."

"I don't think I need to be around another happy couple, but thank you for the advice," I replied honestly.

"You don't have to be alone, Garrett," Jasper said, as we shook hands.

"I'm glad we met on better terms, Jasper," I replied, ignoring him. I was surprised how much truth my statement held.

"Garrett!" Alice chimed. I stooped down until my face was even with hers.

"I can't wait till you get over yourself! You'll be so much more fun!" she proclaimed, and grabbed me around the neck, kissing my forehead.

I turned and walked away from her, dazed. Before the door closed behind me, she called to me.

"Enjoy your epiphany!"

The door shut, and I was alone in the darkness.


	33. 29 APOCALYPSE NOWISH 1861 TO 1862

Author's Note #1: I'm not updating as often

_Author's Note #1: I'm not updating as often. I have many excuses. I'm in the middle of the often maligned (though I enjoy it, even if it's a pale comparison of much better fantasy like George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, and of course Tolkien) Inheritance Cycle. I'm trying to watch about twenty TV shows right now. And, of course, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies are in the World Series! I cannot even describe how happy this makes me (and if you don't think Garrett is making a trip to the old Veteran's Stadium for the Phillies' 1980 World Series Championship, the only time they've ever won it, you don't know me at all). I'll try to prioritize everything (but the Phillies are priority number one until November)._

_Author's Note #2: Hopefully, this chapter explains some of what the hell was going on in chapter 27 "Vignettes", or at least enough that it isn't too confusing._

**29. APOCALYPSE, NOWISH (1861-1862)**

The night sky was brightly lit to the east and north. The Federals had begun their bombardment. I barely noticed, and I certainly didn't care.

Something was wrong, I could sense it.

I approached the window cautiously. I wasn't afraid of much, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with fear.

XXX

"You know I love a good war, William. The last one was deeply unsatisfying." I said.

I was excited, more excited than I'd been since we'd gone south to the vampire wars, fifteen years earlier. Not that Susie didn't excite me. But the thrill of the hunt seemed ever more elusive in the past years, and the bloodlust was always nearly as strong as my love for her.

"I didn't want to go to that war, and I don't want to go to this one either. Really Garrett, your ideas are always terrible. You need to find some satisfaction in our way of life. You can't live like this for centuries." William wasn't referring to the vampires, but to the Mexican War. It seemed that with every war America entered, my own enjoyment was lessened. Would America ever be in another war that I could believe in? I thought this War Between the States had a great deal of promise. I'd never had a great love of the Southern way of life even before I'd become a monster.

It was William's idea to return north, to the United States, after a decade of death and destruction in Central America, but though he accused me of being restless, I thought it was him who missed the massive slaughters of the vampire wars. Not that he'd taken the great pleasure that I had from killing vampires. No, he liked the idea of creating the armies and ruling over them. He wouldn't say it, but I knew. Not that I ever would have been party to such atrocities.

And without that possibility to thrill William, our family had moved north, just in time for the US to collapse on itself, for years and years of tension to finally explode, as it probably should have a decade, even two decades before.

I found the whole idea of the war very exciting.

Apparently, Mary had not.

She'd once again disappeared, and, for the first time in nearly four decades, without any word of warning. We'd been having a bit of fun in Kentucky, all of us partaking in our individual hunts in that lovely countryside, and found her gone when we returned to our meeting point. As always, William was far more distraught by her sudden and unexplained disappearance than I was. He never could stand the thought of our family being broken up.

"What do you say, Susie, would you like to join me for a nice little war? Hunting soldiers is quite a bit more challenging than women and children and old men." I smiled at her, trying to gain her confidence.

"Susan, listen to me. I don't want to follow Garrett into another one of these insane human conflicts. Don't forget the last time we followed him into one of these. You both nearly died. I nearly died too. We can go west. Live a peaceful life for a time." The full power of William's persuasive force was upon her, and she looked at me uncertainly.

"I don't like this place," I said, looking out over the city. "I can feel the sun and the heat coming. Let's get out of here and have some old fashioned fun, Susie. No more vampires to kill, just the hunt. A great hunt. Blood and destruction. Isn't that what we live for, love? That and each other?" I didn't have William's powers, but I had her love. I hoped it would be enough. There was something about the smell of Atlanta that repulsed me. I wanted to get to the north, smell the blood and smoke, hear the agony and destruction, witness the horrors humanity could inflict on itself. It made me feel a little better about my own nature.

"This war has only just begun," I continued, seeing in her eyes that my words were effective. "We'll have years of chaos ahead of us."

"I will not go with you!" William was incensed at Susie's wavering face. "You will break our family, Garrett? Is that what you want? To break that which we've wrought for eighty years!"

"Mary broke our coven a long time ago, William. I love you as a brother, but you don't decide where Susie and I go." I felt extremely guilty. He loved this family so desperately.

"My place is with Garrett," Susie said, finally decided. "Will you not join us?" Her voice became more firm as she spoke.

"I will never forgive you for this if you leave, Garrett," he whispered quietly.

"Then accompany us! Who knows where this war may take us. It's so very exciting!" I pulled Susie into my arms, hoping that my enthusiasm would infect her, that she would feel my confidence. It felt as though she did.

"Yes, William, it will be so much better if you are there," Susie tried to appease him.

William sat quietly in the high backed chair by the fire, the dead body of the smallest girl of the family he'd slaughtered to acquire the house still lying next to the chair. He paid her no mind.

"Go then. Get out. I hope we see each other again someday."

"Come now, William, of course we'll see each other again! Quite soon!" I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Yes," he said. "Quite soon." A small smile crossed his face. Good then, he would be alright.

XXX

I stood on the precipice, willing myself to look into the window. What was it that I so feared? Had one of the many vampires I'd killed had a mate who sought retribution? It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Fighting off my cowardice, I turned and crouched outside of the window. The blasts of Union artillery continued in the distance, and the sky was bright behind me. I saw the red and orange colors reflected in the window. I forced myself to look inside, past the reflection.

XXX

Susie and I travelled north and east to Charleston. It was firmly in the hands of the Confederates, who had forced the Federals out of Fort Sumter a few months before. I rather liked the city. It was still peaceful, despite the specter of war that hung over it. Once the South Carolinians had taken the fort, the action had quickly moved northward, to Virginia, to the rapidly developing line between those states that would secede and those that would not.

We briefly considered going west, to Kentucky, where the citizens wavered as to which side they would choose and the Federals tried desperately to fortify their lines for an assault on Tennessee. But the war would be fought and won in Virginia. That was where we needed to be.

"A bit of a diversion, love?" I asked when we'd moved up the coast to North Carolina.

"Whatever can you mean, Garrett?" she asked coyly. She knew exactly where we were.

We acquired a residence in Wilmington. A small apartment overlooking the Cape Fear. Doing such was far easier for me when I didn't have to slaughter families. In this case we'd killed a lawyer who lived alone. An acceptable, if not amusing kill.

We walked the river, ignoring the soldiers moving through the streets, the nervous people, unsure of how their lives would proceed as they prepared for war. The port was busy with ships conscripted to Confederate service, and the peaceful air of Wilmington and its port was broken. Not that we cared.

What I did care about was discovering a damned building on our beach.

When last we'd been here, New Hanover Banks was uninhabited. But progress had spread from Wilmington, and some idiot had decided to build a boat club on our island. It wasn't even New Hanover anymore. The bastard who owned it had renamed the place Wrightsville, after himself.

We sat on our beach, the night sky twinkling overhead. I was bitterly disappointed whenever I noticed the building that loomed behind us.

"The humans have ruined it, love. I'm so sorry!"

"Nonsense, Garrett." She reached out and held my face in her hands. "This will always be our place. The humans can never destroy what we had here. What we…have here."

She began unbuttoning my coat, and then my shirt. I tossed the coat away, wrenched the remaining buttons from my shirt, and pulled her to me, reaching around to undo her dress.

"This will always be our place," she repeated, and I tore her dress away. I pulled her on top of me, and felt the same joy and passion as I had before the damned humans had ruined it. She was right. She was a master at distracting me.

I couldn't have cared less about the damned boathouse.

XXX

I gripped the sill tightly. I wasn't sure what I was seeing at first. I was too confused for my mind to register everything.

Even my vast vampire mind could not process the horror.

A particularly loud explosion shook me awake. And the horror hit me head on.

XXX

We narrowly missed the first big action in Virginia, but the chaos that reigned over wartime Virginia and Maryland was more than enough for us to enjoy ourselves.

It wasn't until the following year that Federal efforts began in earnest. McClellan, on the demand of Lincoln, launched a massive attack to take Hampton Roads and the Virginia Peninsula, hoping to eventually take control of the Rebel capital of Richmond.

The panic on the peninsula was intoxicating. People fled town after town as the Federals advanced, taking Fort Munroe at the southeastern tip, and then slowly moving upward between the York and the James.

I had grown to respect the tactics of the Rebels with each battle I witnessed. They fought like Washington, always ensuring that they would not be trapped, never allowing for a decisive battle. Every time the Federals thought they had the Rebels trapped, the Confederates would fall back effectively, and they always ensured that the Union took more losses than they did.

The Army of the Potomac, on the other hand, was an ineffective and unwieldy force. Every time McClellan should have pushed an advantage, he overestimated the Confederates and let them fortify their defenses. My natural inclination was to support the Union, but my deep respect for the Rebels made me an equal opportunity hunter. I didn't care whether the stray soldier I found wore blue or grey.

The irony that I was involved in yet another battle at Yorktown was not lost on me. The Federals had advanced sufficiently up the coast to encounter the rebel defenses there, and the fighting was fierce.

Susie had remained in Williamsburg, content to enjoy the pleasures of the nearly abandoned town, her thirst momentarily satiated. She'd found a house she liked, and encouraged me to enjoy the battle. The siege lasted for nearly a month, the Rebels holding their own against considerably superior Federal forces. I returned to Susie every few days, but she seemed content to enjoy stray soldiers. Macgruder's Confederate forces waited until the last possible moment to retreat, and the damned fool McClellan began bombarding the now empty siege line.

I moved ahead of the Confederate retreat, so I could warn Susie that the battle was upon her, and that we should find new residence, perhaps in Richmond. As I approached Williamsburg and saw the new Confederate defensive lines begin to unfold, a feeling of deep unease hit me. I didn't know why, but I was suddenly worried that something might have happened to Susie. I stretched my senses, but I could not find a hint of another vampire. Nothing else could harm her, but I quickened my pace.

XXX

"I'm so glad you've returned, my love," I heard Susie say. I moved to open the window, and my vision cleared.

She lay on the bed, her nakedness concealed below the waist by the sheets. A human woman who lay next to her screamed as Susie turned and bit into the flesh of her shoulder, ripping the sleeve from the woman's dress.

The room was bright from the firelight. Two bodies were already discarded by the bed.

The woman's body tightened as Susan bit into her, and then stiffened again.

William rose from her other side, moving past the woman and pushing the sheet aside, biting into the top of Susan's thigh. Susan groaned with pleasure.

He stared straight at the window where I crouched, and his lips turned up. I could almost see his familiar smirk.

The sky was on fire around me, but the explosions of artillery went unnoticed.

I couldn't even bring myself to scream.

_Author's Note #3: To borrow from the creators of __Lost__ describing the second season finale,"Live Together, Die Alone", if you were bitten by the rattlesnake in the mailbox, I'm glad. If you knew the rattlesnake was in the mailbox miles before you got here, I hope you still enjoyed the journey. As always, similarities to the __Angel__ season three episode "Apocalypse, Nowish" and the __Angel__ season five episode "Destiny" are completely deliberate._


	34. 30 CONSTITUTION 1862

Author's Note: There are actual lines of dialogue from this chapter taken directly from the Angel season five episode "Destiny"

_Author's Note: There are actual lines of dialogue from this chapter taken directly from the Angel season five episode "Destiny". I loathe writing dialogue. It never feels natural. I apologize. So credit to episode scribes David Fury and Steven S. DeKnight. Oh, and "Let's Go PHILLIES!"_

**30. CONSTITUTION (1862)**

I dropped the bottle, empty, tossing it next to the three other empty bottles.

The beach, our beach, spread around me. The ocean, black against the night sky, was suddenly appealing. I couldn't drown, but perhaps I could get lost in the waves.

No, that wouldn't work. I pulled the cork out of the next bottle with my teeth. I had a match. If I doused myself in the whiskey and lit it on fire, I would probably die.

I took a long drink from the bottle. My mind was hazy. Was the liquor working, or was I simply so insane that I was convincing myself that I was drunk?

I heard her approach. I ignored it. I drank from the bottle in long gulps. The taste was revolting. It hadn't tasted as bad when I was human. I could feel the liquor sitting in my stomach. I deeply hoped it would enter my system, the same as the blood. I definitely felt different.

"Does that actually work? I know we can't eat, but perhaps drinking would work the same as the blood."

I finished the fourth bottle in silence, ignoring her. I didn't want to look at her. I tossed it into the pile, and pulled the cork out of the next bottle of whiskey. I would get drunk. I had to.

There had to be some way to escape the memories.

XXX

William moved around, until his body was against hers. He wrapped himself around her, leaving her thigh and caressing her neck.

His teeth dug into the flesh there, and Susan convulsed with euphoria, draining the body of the woman even as William tasted her blood, again.

I blacked out.

William was pinned beneath my forearm, his naked body hanging against the shattered wall where I'd crushed him. But he wasn't in pain. He was laughing. I heard my own snarls, loud and vicious, but I did not feel as though I was in control of my body.

"Garrett! Let him go! Please!" Susan begged, gripping the arm that clutched his shoulder and held him up as my other arm pinned him against the wall.

I looked at her slowly.

Her mouth was still dripping with the blood of her victim. The sheet she'd pulled around herself had slipped free when she'd taken grip of my arm with both hands, and she was completely naked as well.

It was her nakedness that rocked me from rage to insanity. I reeled away from William, tossing him away and collapsing to my knees, clutching my head in my hands. I heard myself scream. I felt hands on mine, trying to pry my fingers from my face before I clawed my own eyes out.

"Garrett…" Susan said. She was trying to get my attention.

I tore myself away from her, backed away until I heard the glass cracking beneath my boots where I'd smashed the window.

And then I saw William again, a smirk once again lighting his face. He didn't bother to stop me when I once again went for his throat.

"You knew she was mine!" I shouted. William laughed abruptly, and then struck me away. I didn't bother to fight back. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to kill or wanted to die.

"I warned you, Garrett. This is my family. I told you to listen. You never would. We should be the best of friends. But you just won't let us. You just don't get it, now, do you? She's never been yours, not from the first moment I turned her. She listened to me and hunted with me that very night. You always thought you were so human. That's your problem. Susan and I, we're vampires.

"You're a little dim. So let me explain to you how things are. There's no belonging or deserving anymore. You can take what you want, have what you want... but nothing is yours. Not even her. She has been mine for sixty years."

I was hunched on the floor again. Susan didn't come near me this time. "You're wrong. Susan and I are forever," I gasped, my eyes searching for hers. Her look was apprehensive.

"Are you now?" William laughed.

"William, please, not like this!" Susan exclaimed, pulling her undergarments on.

"How else?" He was still laughing, tugging his own smallclothes on as well.

"She hasn't been yours for a single day, Garrett, not for a single minute. Why the hell do you think Mary keeps leaving? Why do you think Susan won't hunt with you? You're so perfect when you're together that everything you aren't providing for her makes you mates anyway? I grew weary of this decades ago, but I always thought you'd eventually come around, Garrett. I was wrong. You remained an idiot no matter how many times someone nearly killed you, no matter how many times Mary warned you, no matter how many times Susan and I hunted together, laid together, right under your goddamned nose. You were just too self righteous to see it, you self centered bastard."

"No, gods no, please, tell me he's lying Sue.' I looked at her desperately.

She said nothing, and looked away.

"Oh come now, Garrett, you really thought she went into that burning building to get me because she felt brotherly love? Or that I was trying to save _you_ from Steven? How could you be so obtuse?" William was enjoying the revelations now.

"Mary told you about mates. You always thought that Susan was yours, but she has been mine all along. You have nothing. You are nothing. Just the crazy vampire who likes to kill other vampires. You were always too willing to share this world, with me, with the insignificant humans. Susan loves you. But she and I are mated for life. You are simply the last remnant of her old one."

"Susan, please," I gasped.

"I…I do love you Garrett," she finally said after a few minutes. "You are the only thing left from my old life. I never cared about my family, my children, once I changed. I love this life too much. I wish you could have embraced it too. But you always wanted to hunt. Always wanted to make things hard. Always cared too much about right and wrong. William and I are so much more alike. We want the same things. You love me, I know. But you never understood me. Not the way that he does." She looked sad as she finished.

William crouched next to me. "There is no right and wrong, Garrett. Not in our world. You're still my family, as much as I hate to admit it. We can share her, if you wish. Hell, we've been doing that for sixty years now. At least you'll know what's going on. I won't have to laugh at you behind your back."

"Get…the hell…away from me!" My teeth snapped at him, and he rolled away from me.

"Please, Garrett, no!" Susan cried, and she was at my other side.

"I'm going to destroy him."

"I love him, Garrett. We'll leave. You won't ever have to see us again." She was desperate.

"Don't bother, Susan. I've been waiting for this for ages. Let's go, Garrett." William beckoned me with his fingers.

I was only too happy to comply.

XXX

"This used to be ours," I said, waving my hand across the beach. "Susie's and mine. And then they built that damned boat club. Ruined everything."

I held the whiskey bottle out, and Mary sat down quietly next to me. My body was splayed out, propped up against the sand dune so I could stare out at the ocean. She sat a few feet away, her knees tucked against her chest. Maybe she didn't want to get sandy? I didn't know. I didn't care. I was just glad she took the bottle.

She took a heavy gulp, and then winced and spit it out. "How can you drink this?"

"Don't notice the taste after awhile," I smiled, and lurched toward her. I grabbed the bottle and settled back, taking another long gulp. I lied about noticing the taste. I hoped she didn't see me wince.

"What happened to your clothes?" She asked. I looked down at my nearly destroyed jacket, and the singe marks that covered my shirt and trousers and boots. "Those jackets were easy to get in the '20's. I can't promise anything now.

I didn't say anything. I took another drink.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked quietly.

"I think you already know," I replied.

"Did you kill kim?" she asked. She was concerned. For William. Ugh.

"He killed me. They both did. Who cares what happened to them?" But Mary did care. I just couldn't bring myself to console her.

We sat in silence as I righted myself. I liked lacking control of my body. The sensation was very unusual.

"Is that working?" she finally asked.

"Yes," I answered. She finished the second half of the bottle while I turned away and vomited the liquid inside me.

"Are you sure? I'd rather not do that."

"I can feel the alcohol. Just need another bottle." I removed the cork out of the next bottle of whiskey beside me, took a hard pull, and handed it to her. I was glad I still had three left, if Mary was going to join me.

She rolled her eyes, but took another drink, shuddering as she tasted the whiskey.

XXX

William and I fought as we had so many times. He was faster and smarter, I was stronger and more experienced. It was the same as our first time. I had killed more vampires, but he had killed enough to know all of the weak spots, the places to incapacitate and to kill.

The building rocked back and forth with the force of our battle. Walls shattered, windows burst.

There was one major difference. I didn't care.

Usually this was my strength, my willingness to fight blindly, and without thought. But I didn't even care if I won. I wanted William to die, but I had no future if I won. How could I ever look at Susan again? Why would I want to? I'd lived a lie for seventy years. I didn't even want to win.

And William knew it. He pushed us out of the building, positioning my body so that I took the full impact of the two story drop. He threw me back through the brick wall before I could recover. My ribs were cracked in several places, my arm was broken, and I was quite sure that something was wrong with my spine.

I grabbed him thoughtlessly, ignoring the pain, and threw him away. He hit the fireplace on the lower level, but he didn't catch fire. But a burning ember was in his hand when he rose.

"William, no!" Susan screamed, vaulting down the stairs.

He ignored her, and set about lighting the house on fire.

"We're leaving," he said quietly, and grabbed her arm.

I didn't bother to look at them, though I felt Susan's eyes on me.

"Garrett! Get yourself out of here!" she yelled as he pulled her out the door.

The heat got closer and closer. I let it.

XXX

"Was it you?" I asked.

Mary had begun laughing at some ill timed joke, but I caught her short.

"Me what?" she replied, confusion on her face.

"Did you pull me out of the fire?"

"Garrett, I haven't seen you in three years," Mary said, and took another drink.

"Guess I've got a guardian angel. Crazy son of a bitch he'd have to be," I laughed. I drank from my own bottle. We had very little whiskey left.

"Shall I get some more?" Mary laughed.

"I could use a bit more. I'll get it. No reason to put you to work." I tried to get up, and was astonished at my lack of balance. I fell solidly back to the ground.

"Guess you'd better get it," I sighed, and buried my face in the dune grass.

She didn't move. I waited, but I just heard her take another drink.

"It's not supposed to be like this," she finally said.

"What do you mean?" I muttered.

"We're supposed to mate. Vampires don't have love triangles. Or love…squares!" she giggled loudly, and I found myself laughing too. And then I couldn't stop. I was rolling in the sand, laughing so loud that I was braying like a donkey. I didn't even know what it was I was laughing at, but I simply couldn't stop. Everything about my life, or afterlife, was too ludicrous not to be funny.

Mary was gripping my shoulders when I finally stopped. I looked up at her, and she gazed at me in sympathy. She was so pretty. And she knew me so well. I ignored my better instincts. It was the whiskey, after all. That's what I told myself. I gripped her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers.

She pulled away immediately.

"We aren't like that, Garrett," she said.

"Neither are William and Susie, at least to us," I replied.

She looked away from me, and I groaned and rolled on my back.

I stared up at the stars, my vision distorted. I was reminded of lying in the field in Kentucky, ignoring William's concern over Mary's departure, just happy to be lying in the sun with Susie at my side. I shuddered and close my eyes.

I felt her move next to me before I opened my eyes. She silently removed remains of my jacket from me. She pulled herself next to me, and I wrapped my arm around her. Mary opened her blouse, unbuttoned my shirt, and pressed her bare breasts against my chest. I hoped Mary wouldn't mind the hair. Susan never had.

"Are you sure?" I asked quietly.

She pulled away from me and began to remove her skirt and smallclothes. I yanked of my trousers so that I was naked against her.

"You're a good man, Garrett Smith," she whispered in my ear.

The sand felt good against my body. It was a distraction. Everything was a distraction.

For a few hours, the horror was gone.


	35. 35 EPIPHANY 1955 TO 2006

Author's Note: Yes, another one of these

_Author's Note: Yes, another one of these. I originally wrote this chapter in chronological order, but then I cut and pasted it because I just love bouncing around in time. I literally can't help myself. Man, I can't wait for __Lost__ to come back. Thank you to all of you who have been asking for more, because I was having a hard time writing, especially Megandalf and Missie. I probably wouldn't have written this chapter tonight without all of you, so I hope it's only slightly disappointing rather than really disappointing._

**31. EPIPHANY (1955-2006)**

BANGOR (2006)

These were not the sort I hunted anymore. I was looking for a human.

But the vampires were racing toward me openly. The scent was familiar. One of the scents was of someone I actually liked. I nearly laughed out loud.

Let them come. This would be…intriguing.

PALO ALTO (1955)

I stood on their doorstep for a long time. I heard them inside. Polite conversation overshadowed by the piano. Pachelbel's "Canon" washed over me. It was my favorite bit of classical music.

I wanted to cry, so desperately, but I could not. I was incapable of crying. I was incapable of any human emotion that actually mattered. What I was capable of was hatred, pure and desperate hatred. I was capable of evil, evil that few humans could even conceive. Most of all I was capable of sadness, overwhelming sadness.

I ran then, no longer wanting to hear the beautiful music. It was too painful. I did not deserve to have such beauty in my life.

I sprinted down to the bay like lightning, and threw myself in. I let myself sink like a stone into the murky blackness. I heard Alice's final words as I sank.

"Enjoy your epiphany." It was like a beautiful chorus of bells in my ears. But I could not allow my heart to hope. My heart was already dead.

PHILADELPHIA (1980)

The humans around me were euphoric. And I found myself sharing in their euphoria. What a strange emotion this was, to be happy. And yet somehow, as Tug McGraw stretched his arms above him in elation and Bob Boone gripped him tight, I felt as I had in my human days. It was a wonderful feeling.

I pulled my maroon cap with its white monogrammed "P" low over my face as I exited the stadium, but I found the pounding of human hands on my back, the "high fives" to fellow fans, the warm smiles all around me, to be utterly refreshing. Once again, Mary had managed to release me from my woes, even if it wasn't her intention.

The smell of the human woman who unexpectedly hugged me was intoxicating, but easy to ignore. I understood what all those people had talked about for years and years about being on drugs. Life wasn't so bad. Even vampire life. I felt high.

Two men grabbed me around the shoulders and led me towards a bar, and I didn't object. I nodded my head when they spoke of Schmidt's two run single. I pointed out how great Steve Carlton was. I smiled and laughed at their jokes. I bought them rounds of whiskey and beer. They might never see this again in their whole lives. No one else in Philadelphia had.

When I left the bar at two o'clock in the morning, still smiling and laughing, I wondered what I would do next. No more baseball to keep me occupied. What would be the next thing to give me happiness? I looked forward to finding it.

"Of course you would be a Phillies fan," a husky voice said behind me.

I turned and smiled.

HOLLYWOOD (1965)

There was something quite good about this band, I had to admit. Even my vampire ears could appreciate the incredible quality of their artistry. For that's what it was, it was art. Not since I'd first listened to the classics, to the occasional jazz number, had I described music as art. Not that I was an aficionado, but this band was good.

I hated Los Angeles to the very core of my being, and yet there was something intriguing about it as well. The sun drove me crazy, and I was forced to stay inside for over half of the day, but there was something about being at the core of everything human. It was nothing like New York, and yet strangely similar. And just like New York, I loved and hated this city all at once as well. I preferred Philadelphia, of course, and San Francisco and London and Chicago, but none of those cities quite had what New York and Los Angeles had. At least not for the humans living there.

I tracked the vagrant out of the Hollywood Bowl, and the lines from the song trailed after me: "_But she don't care. I don't know why she's ridin' so high, she ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me. Before she gets to saying goodbye, she ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me._"

I caught him outside of the stadium, my teeth digging into the scruff of his neck, his filth so disgusting that he wasn't even appealing. Most of my prey was no longer appealing to me. Vagrants and beggars, whatever was easiest, whatever would not get me in trouble. Trouble was the last thing I needed.

MANHATTAN (2001)

I vomited the blood I'd drank the night before, back in Boston, whatever was still in my body. I didn't know what had driven me to see this, but it was a horrible mistake. I hadn't seen anything like this since World War II. But somehow, this was worse. Black smoke covered the skies, and I could walk freely. I took no pleasure in it.

I felt a strange urge to help, but I knew that such was a bad idea. Involving oneself in human affairs was always a bad idea. I shuddered at how much William would have enjoyed this chaos. It sickened me that I'd ever gone along with him.

I had to get out of here. I'd swim across the Hudson and to New Jersey if I had to. This sort of life wasn't me anymore.

It was then that I caught the scent of another vampire.

I followed him surreptitiously. I was no longer Garrett the vampire hunter. I was just Garrett. But if this vampire did intend to hunt, he needed to be stopped. These people had seen enough horror for one day.

It was a woman. Of course. I hadn't killed a vampire in fifty years, and I might have to kill a female.

But when she attacked an injured young man in an alley only blocks away from ground zero, my decision was made.

I barely thought about tearing out her throat. I dismembered her quickly, and was happy to burn her. I was glad I never got a chance to learn her name. The taste of her flesh disgusted me. Removing her scent in the Hudson was as relieving as being away from the city. And yet, as I stared at the skyline from Jersey City, I could not help but try to vomit again. New York was not my city, but it was my city today.

PORTLAND (1976)

"My God, Garrett, is that you?" Mary looked at me curiously.

I was huddled in an alley, my coat tucked tight around me. I had hoped no one would notice. I picked up her scent a quarter mile before she approached me, and the scent of another vampire. He smelled neither ominous nor inviting. I wasn't in any shape to fight him. I felt as though I was starving.

Mary approached me slowly. "What happened to you?" she asked quietly.

I knew my eyes had to be black as coal. I hadn't hunted in two weeks. The smell of the humans was no longer enticing. My clothes were in shambles, my long hair tattered and covered in all means of vile and disgusting things. I hadn't bathed in years. I knew my face was covered in dirt, because no human had mentioned my appearance in sunlight for months.

Another vampire stood behind Mary, average in almost every way. His hair was brown, he was no more than six feet, and his clothes were normal.

Mary pulled her hood down, and the rain fell quietly on her lovely chestnut hair. She was as beautiful as I remembered.

"Garrett?" she asked again.

"What the hell do you want?" I spat, and pulled away when she reached out to me.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked, and looked at me as though I was crazy.

"Of course I do. You're the bitch who ruined my life." I muttered, but the other vampire heard and immediately crouched. I snarled at him, but backed away.

"Randall, stop!" Mary pleaded, and then turned back to me. "Garrett, tell me, what happened to you?"

"Life," I said coldly. "Or rather death. This hell where you sent me. This hell I can never escape."

I turned from them and fled. Hers was the last face I wanted to see.

LAREDO (1964)

"Did you read this one yet?" I asked, handing the comic book to Peter. "It's called _The Amazing Spider-Man_. It's about this high school kid with spider powers. Only he's not really a superhero. His life is actually worse because of his secret identity."

"Really, Garrett, I hope Peter isn't won over by this trash that you read," Charlotte said. Peter glanced at the comic book in my hand, and looked away. But I saw his eyes look back.

We sat in a hayloft outside of the town on the Rio Grande, waiting for the sun to set. I had been with Peter and Charlotte for only a few months, but I could barely stand either one of them. The fact that their blond hair was so close it nearly matched. That Peter rarely had a thought that Charlotte did not. They were perfectly suited. For each other. But not for me. Jasper was wrong.

Peter pulled Charlotte into his arms, and they began kissing. I could already tell where this would go. "I'll give you two some privacy, I said quietly. I grabbed the other comic books I had purchased and left the barn, moving out into the empty grass. I sat by the river and spread them out before me. I enjoyed how Peter Parker could not be with Betty Brant because of his secret. It reminded me of Sabine. I knew only too well how secrets could destroy.

I waited until they were at the height of their passion, and left quietly. I would never be like them. I could never be with them. Such was not my destiny.

BANGOR (2006)

"It's been awhile," I said, after waiting for them to make their approach.

"That's because you won't go to the World Series or the Super Bowl anymore! I haven't seen you in four years!" Emmett exclaimed.

"I don't go to games when one of the teams represents a state or region. The damned Marlins ruined everything for me. How do you support Florida? Or New England? Or Carolina? It doesn't even make sense. But I was at that Super Bowl in Jacksonville. A depressing bit, that was." I smiled at Emmett broadly. I liked him immensely. A lot more than his brothers. Or his wife.

"I guess we missed each other," Emmett said, and stuck out his hand. I shook it gladly.

"You remember Rosalie, right?"

"Of course," I said, and nodded to her. She did not reply. I often got the feeling that when Emmett went to sporting events, they were like bachelor parties. Rosalie did not approve, I could tell.

So I was surprised when she spoke.

"Garrett, we have a problem, and we were hoping you could help."

CANYON CITY (1976)

"Let me at least get you a bath," Mary insisted. "You stink like vermin."

I lay staring at the Cascade Mountains, looking up at the sky. I was fortunate to find a hiker on my trip east, and was at least better fed. I knew Mary was following, but had hoped she might have given up.

"I am vermin," I sighed after a moment, hoping she would go away.

"Get up and come with me. I'm going to find us a place to stay in that town, she said, pointing to the small settlement in the foothills. "You need this."

"Why the hell do you care? And what happened to your mate?" I asked harshly, ignoring her when she grabbed my arm and tugged.

"Randall is not my mate. We are…temporary companions. And I told him to enjoy himself in Portland. You are coming with me." She pulled my arm hard, and I realized that I had fed so infrequently, she was stronger than I was.

I let her lead me into the town, Canyon City, and waited outside while she paid for a room at the only hotel. The manager looked at me harshly as she led the way down the hall and quickly unlocked the room and shoved me in, pushing me onto the bed.

"Are you even feeding, Garrett?" she asked glumly as she pulled my boots and jacket off.

"Not unless I have to," I sighed. "And I don't need your help."

"Oh really?" She arched an eyebrow at me, and before I knew it she was tearing my shirt off and unbuckling my pants.

"Mary, I don't want to - " she rolled her eyes at me, and pulled me bodily from the bed, shoving me into the shower. She turned the spray on high, and tossed me the soap.

"I don't want to either. But no vampire that I sired can go around like this," she finally replied frostily, and slammed the door to the bathroom.

I had to admit, she was right. The shower was filthy even before I began to lather the soap on my body. I was disgusting. Even the vagrants I usually hunted were cleaner than this. There was nothing for my hair, so I washed that with soap as well. I turned the heat up on the shower, too high for human skin. It felt good. I had no idea how long I was in there before Mary knocked on the door.

"I burned your clothes and found new ones," she said loudly.

"Bring them in!" I shouted.

I heard the door open, and was out of the shower immediately. Mary looked at me in shock as I clutched her to me.

"Garrett? What are you doing?" I ignored her, and kissed her full in the mouth. She struggled for a second, and then she was responding.

"I want to feel something. Anything," I said quietly, and released her. The steam moved past her out the door. I didn't know how she would react.

My body slammed against the tile of the shower, cracking it in hundreds of places, and she ignored the fact that her shirt and jeans were wet as she kissed me, passionately.

"I need to feel something too," she sighed, her lips moving down my chest.

It was only when we lay in each others arms that I realized how wrong everything was.

PHILADELPHIA (1980)

"Emmett, Jasper, it's nice to see you again." I inclined my head.

"How can you be a Phillies fan!" Emmett exclaimed. "I know that you're crazy, but you can't be that crazy!" He shook his head, and he and Jasper both put out their hands.

"I was born and raised here. If I don't love the Phillies, who will I love?" I replied, smiling back and shaking each of their hands happily.

"Well, I prefer football. When the Volunteers are good," Emmett said, and slapped me on the back. We walked through the city, and they updated me on their family, which was now living in Philadelphia while they attended Penn. Emmett had a great love of sports, and was thoroughly enjoying his surroundings.

"Obviously, it's nothing like vampire baseball, but it's great. Have you ever watched hockey? You'll love it!" Emmett droned on.

When he finally finished, I turned to both of them. I knew where they were going. "I'm not ready yet," I said softly. "Maybe someday," I looked up at the house that smelled distinctly of vampires. I knew their brothers and sisters could smell me. Edward could probably hear my thoughts.

"I'll see you at the next one, Garrett! It's about time I met another vampire who liked sports." Emmett nudged me with his elbow, and to my surprise, hugged me for a moment.

"I'll be with you in a moment," Jasper said, and waited for Emmett to go inside before motioning me away from the house.

"I haven't had to use my powers," he finally said.

"No. I don't need it." I did not want to elaborate.

"I'm glad Alice was right, Garrett," he nodded to me, and walked away, back towards the house. I glanced back once, and then went on my way.

CANYON CITY (1976)

I released Mary and left her on the bed, going back to the nearly destroyed bathroom. I stared in the mirror, looking at my bright red eyes. They still disturbed me, even after one hundred and ninety years. I splashed water on my face. It wasn't enough.

This was wrong. Not just what I had done with Mary. Everything about me was wrong. I was always doing the wrong things for the right reasons, or the right things for the wrong reasons.

I could have fun without being suicidal. I could go on adventures without hurting the ones that I loved. I didn't need Susan or Mary or Sabine, William or Danny, to make me who I was.

I stared harder, trying to find the real me, the real Garrett. Who was I? Without the women and the covens. Without the death wish and the depression.

I was Garrett. I loved adventure. I loved the hunt but not the kill. I loved my freedom. Life was not bliss. But I could be happy. Because I was still alive. It struck me like a sledgehammer. I might be a vampire, but I wasn't dead. As close as I could be, but I still made my own choices. I still had everything that made me who I was. Only death, or my on stupidity, could take that away. I had to go on living. Even if I wasn't alive.

"Enjoy your epiphany," Alice's voice whispered in my ear.

I was pulling on my new jacket when Mary appeared in front of me. I had been waiting.

"Good luck, Garrett. I'm glad I could help," She said quietly, and ran her hands through my hair, tucking it behind my ears.

I left her with a smile on my face.

BANGOR (2006)

"Look, Garrett, the Volturi are coming to - " Emmett started.

"I'm in!" I exclaimed, and grinned at them. "Where do I sign up?"

_Author's Note #2:For the few international readers I have that may not know anything about American geography or sports: Bangor is in the state of Maine; Portland and Canyon City are in Oregon; Laredo is in Texas, the Beatles sang "Ticket to Ride" when they played the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California on August 30, 1965; the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series for their only championship in their 115 plus year history to now when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson for the third out in the top of the ninth inning of game six in Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 11:29 Eastern Time on October 21__st__; the Florida Marlins won the World Series in 1997 and 2003; the Carolina Panthers went to the Super Bowl and lost in 2004; and the New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl in 2002, as well as defeating the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl in 2005 in Jacksonville, Florida. The usual acknowledgements to the things I basically stole from: the __Angel__ season 2 episodes "Reprise" and "Epiphany", from which the chapter title comes from; __Aspen Extreme__ with the shower scene, believe it or not; and Garrett's epiphany is a happier version of Spike's final lines of the song "Something to Sing About" in the __Buffy the Vampire Slayer__ episode "Once More With Feeling". And the Philadelphia Phillies are only one run and nine outs away from winning the World Series. For the love of the gods don't tell me I jinxed them by writing this before they actually won. That was the whole reason I waited. Let's go PHILLIES!_


	36. INTERLUDE 4

INTERLUDE 4

**INTERLUDE 4**

I didn't want to let Katie go, even after the pain had subsided. I could feel her in my arms, and it felt right in a way nothing else had in well over a century. But she was still angry, and we still had a fight to win. I released her, but stayed close.

"Irina has been punished for bearing false witness against this child," Aro declared, and I felt Katie flinch in my arms. Lying bastard. Aro proceeded with a different tactic, and approached our group again to speak to our witnesses.

I couldn't help but glance at Mary, wondering how she would react if Aro questioned her. But her face told me everything. Mary was a consummate survivor, but I didn't see any sign that she was ready to leave. I almost felt proud that she was my sire. She had no investment in this, after all. Except the future of our species.

With every word that Aro said, he disgusted me more, creating an illusion of horror that did not truly exist. His lies sounded close to truths, except that I knew the Cullens, knew what the truth really was. Someone had to explain it to the nomads in the clearing.

I was suddenly struck with memories of Yorktown and every other battle I'd been a part of. I hoped someone on our side was ready to make a speech. God, I loved a good speech. And we needed one.


End file.
